Estimate Tasks

The most important part of creating tasks is estimating how much time you'll need to complete them. That's what figuring out your workload really means. Without estimating, you will not know how much you can accomplish and you will never be able to manage your time effectively. Do you need to study for one hour or three to get an A on a quiz? Will writing a paper take you five hours or 15? Knowing the answer may be the difference between a B and an easy A.

It's okay if you don't know it exactly right from the start, but you need to make an educated guess and write it down. This way, you can learn from experience and make adjustments as the semester progresses. One thing is certain: you should be pessimistic about how quickly you can get things done. As humans, we all tend to underestimate how long things will take, and we get in trouble because we run out of time. So the best piece of advice I can give you is to overestimate your tasks right from the beginning.

A good starting point is asking your professors about how much time they expect you to spend on each task. They should be able to tell you if a problem set will take five hours or 15. Again, it may not be accurate for you, but at least you have a point of reference. Estimating non-reading tasks in Shovel is easy when you're creating a task. Click on the "add estimate" button and type the time in. You can also set or adjust the estimate for multiple tasks at once by selecting them in the task list and using the action bar at the top of the page.