Task Timer From Dave Seah

Dave Seah, who I interviewed a couple of weeks ago on the Glass Too Big podcast, has released a public online version of his emergent task timer. I saw a version that he posted on his freelancer forum a few days ago and really liked it. It combines the tastefully simple aesthetic that Dave brings to his design work with the really useful functionality that his multiple revisions in his workflow process has been refined to.

It's a nice, ad-hoc way of keeping track of the tasks you're working on for a given day. I'm definitely going to be giving this a shot. At the new job, my time is much like it is at a law firm: it's all tracked against projects. That means that I need to account for it at the end of the day and this is exactly the kind of thing that can help in that regard.

I like this approach better than some of the more structured tools because my days tend to shift pretty dramatically without notice. I don't want to have to define projects, tasks and milestones just to track time against something. This is that extra edge over a blank sheet of paper that makes it really useful.

Dave describes this distinction this way:

Since most people don’t actually plan out their tasks at the detailed level, the emergent task methodology may be the gateway into using The Printable CEO™ when the important high-level tasks aren’t known ahead of time.

-Dave Seah

Just enough organization mixed with cowboy attitude.