Everyone at least once spared a thought about how to find out ways which may help you to enhance your productivity and do everything what you need in time. Heuristics is a set of rules aimed at coming to the assistance in solving your problem.
What Does Heuristics Mean?
As it was mentioned above, heuristics is a set of rules targeted at coming to the rescue in solving your problem. When your task is very complicated or just very huge and the best possible solution is not clear, applying of heuristic methods may help you to move forward in finding the right decision.
Heuristics does not guarantee that you will find the opt solution, moreover, it does not guarantee that you will find at least some decision. But heuristics is very useful to certain tasks. Its strength lies in the fact that it helps to get out of the deadlock and take action.
Beginning to Act
When you start to work, you scrutinize the possible options that deepen your understanding of the problem. By getting more information about a task, you bit by bit raise your chances of finding a solution. If you are trying to solve the problem without knowing exactly how to do it, you may often find a solution in the process. Sometimes we can’t even guess something that we find out while taking actions. This is especially true for creative activities, for example software development. In this sphere you often do not know what you want to do until you start doing it.
Notes
This concept is based on the very simple truth – all matters, and, regardless of their priority, should be noted. During carrying out tasks, person should focus on what he or she is doing now, not on planning the future projects or creating the new ideas. Let’s agree: it's hard to focus on the problem if the head is swarming with hundreds of thoughts, ideas and plans. Because of that you lower your productivity and get the chance of getting tired quicker than it is supposed to be.
That is why note down all the things and tasks which you have or plan to do. It could be saved in your notebook, PC, in recorder or any mobile application for organizing time. Of course, this idea is quite obvious for everyone and is used many times in the concepts of time management, but heuristic concept of notes has its differences, features of which we may see below.
To see entire state of your tasks and goals from the "bird's eye" you should divide tasks into the following six levels:
- Current tasks
- Current projects
- Areas of responsibility
- Tasks for the coming years (1-3 years)
- Plans for the next 5 years
- Life
Setting Priorities
You should carry out distributing of all accumulated problems every week. Thus, you will be able to set priorities and objectives or reject all the ideas that were not very successful. Furthermore, in this way you will rich the balanced and right distribution of time. It is extremely important to allocate tasks by priority in order to understand the sequence in which you should carry out them.
Algorithm
What can you do with this problem? If it can be done in 2-5 minutes, do it straight away and cross out this task of the list. If there are any obstacles (time, resources, energy), then transfer the task to a specific time. If priority is very low or we do not have specific capabilities now to make it, then put it away into the folder "Someday." Cross out those tasks that you cannot do or which are no longer relevant.
Steps
In order to bring the task to the end you should make up strategies of fulfilling it.
First of all, you need to have clear understanding of "Why do I need it" and see the clear picture of the desired outcome. Then generate ideas on how to achieve results. Brainstorming will help you to get clear many new ideas in your mind.
To sum up, this heuristic method of taking notes will help you to set your goals in the right way and achieve desired success.