Picture this: I'm a project manager on a skyscraper in New York City. The new skyscraper is going through a landmark building and part of the project is restoring it. My first assignment is to figure out how long it's going to take to fix the facade of the old building, the materials being limestone and brick. How do I calculate the length of the restoration? Step one: Figure out the time needed to restore one square foot of the brick. Step two: figure out the total square footage of the brick. Step three: multiply those two numbers. This gives you the total time for a single worker to finish the restoration of the brick portion of the facade. Divide this total by the number of workers and repeat the same process for the limestone portion of the facade. This basic exercise was crucial for budgeting and scheduling the project accurately, and here is why that's relevant.
You can apply the same logic to your reading tasks. Each reading source is like a different facade material. One page from a novel will take longer to read than one page from a chemistry textbook. Find out your reading speed for each reading source. Then think of the number of pages you need to do for each reading as the square footage of the facade. When you know the reading speed of a reading source and the number of pages you need to read, you can figure out how long each reading will take. Readings are where you get most of the information you need to succeed in every class. That's why it's so surprising that many students fail to do their readings. Actually, maybe it's not that surprising. I was one of those students at first and I know exactly why I failed to do my readings. I underestimated how long they would take and overestimated how much time I had available. I started late and never had enough time to finish. I ended up not understanding the class material and it was very hard for me to keep up and subsequently to catch up.
So that's why we built reading Tasks into Shovel. The goal is to estimate your reading tasks as accurately as possible and to be able to apply changes to multiple readings with the click of a button. That's why you create your reading tasks differently than your regular tasks. First, create or select a category like before, something like reading or prep for class. Then create a reading source. A reading source is the book or the format of the PDF you'll be reading from. As an example, your English class readings may be from a textbook, a few novels, and single-spaced or double-spaced PDFs. So for example, you would enter something like this: English textbook, "The Great Gatsby," "Heart of Darkness," single-spaced PDFs, and double-spaced PDFs. These would be the reading sources for your English class, but because the purpose of creating reading sources is to figure out how long each reading will take, you'll also estimate how long it will take you to read one page from each reading source. You can write down random estimates, but if I were you, I would time myself reading a page from each reading source. It will not take long and it will help you create accurate estimates right from the start. Don't rush this. Read slower rather than faster. Remember, overestimating how long tasks take is better than underestimating it.
Once you have your reading sources in, enter how many pages you need to do for each reading. Your syllabus will have all of this information, but in case it only says "read chapter three," simply grab your book's table of contents and look where chapter three starts and ends. If you enter page ranges such as 38 to 45, Shovel will calculate the total number of pages, or you can enter the total number of pages yourself. Once your pages are in, Shovel will multiply the time per page of your selected reading source by the number of pages you need to read and tell you exactly how much time you'll need for each reading. And the coolest part is when you change the reading speed for a reading source, the estimates for all of the readings from that reading source will update in real time. I cannot stress enough how helpful this is. You will always leave yourself enough time to get your readings done on time, giving yourself the best chance at success if the material gets harder. As you progress in your classes, you'll be able to update how long your future readings will take with the click of a button. Trust me, this will help you be less stressed.