6 ms·

An app to visualize and organize your tasks in an Impact/ Urgency matrix. The app currently uses local storage only, no accounts yet. Would love some feedback

An app to visualize and organize your tasks in an Impact/ Urgency matrix. The app currently uses local storage only, no accounts yet. Would love some feedback :)

m00x 6y ago
Who is this for? I feel like PMs will just put everything in the top right corner.
- raunakdag 6y ago
  Maybe some sort of form to input details about task to automatically assign the two variables?
  - educated_idiot 6y ago
    I think that complicates the UI a tiny bit. Right now, the user can drag any task to place the task anywhere. I don't think numeric fields make for pleasant UI. I could be wrong though. Will keep this point in mind, if more folks complain, will work it in :)
- educated_idiot 6y ago
  Good question. This isn't for PMs. This actually should not be used for large/ group projects. As you rightly said, a PM will put everything in top-right. This was intended for self-prioritization.
  - ampersandy 6y ago
    The imaginary PM stereotype everyone likes to bash would do that, real teammates you work with that respect your time will work with you to plot things in a way that better reflects the team/organization’s shared priorities :) Don’t sell this short because of an imaginary threat (rampant PM abuse)!
    - educated_idiot 6y ago
      Fair enough, that's a good point. My spouse is a PM and when I asked them to use this, they actually ended up using all quads except for Bottom Right (Low Impact, High Urgency). So your points stands, a competent team will correctly prioritise.
      - loopz 6y ago
        What people do you have? Every owner will put it in top right corner. The reason is organizational neglect and lack of due process. Just happened again some weeks ago, and due to org, was sadly necessary.
        educated_idiot 6y ago
        Haha, take the other people out of the equation. This is more about self-prioritization. How your team/ org works/ prioritises depends on a variety of factors and I do not think any single framework will serve all those. This is not even attempting to solve that need.
        loopz 6y ago
        It's a neat idea, though I too started over-engineering planning for myself. Over time a simple text-list works well for me. Quadrants is more a communication and collaboration tool. Looks like nice work though. Besides, if someone asks, they always get response.
        educated_idiot 6y ago
        Yeah, planning is a double edged sword. And I don't believe one tool works for everyone or all needs. Our brains and thought processes are too varied to all fit in opinionated frameworks. Yeah, I posted here for the feedback/ response. Trying to improve my understanding of UX/UI and no better way than to get users to tell you :D
- swyx 6y ago
  if that's your impression of PM's you're either not being fair to the PM's you work with or you need to work with better PM's.
  - 0df8dkdf 6y ago
    Na, PMs who do that should all be beaten senselessly with a baseball bat, metaphorically of course? ;-)
- codingdave 6y ago
  If your PMs would do such a thing, they don't understand the role of a PM.
gabaix 6y ago
Great job! You could mention it is an inspiration from the Eisenhower Matrix. This aims to solve the urgency trap. First time I see a tool made for it. I will give it a try!
- educated_idiot 6y ago
  Thanks! Definitely, should mention that somewhere
thaumasiotes 6y ago
Is there a metric for the ease of completing a task? This could be relevant in two ways. First, task impact per unit of effort is technically a better measure of how worthwhile it is to complete the task than absolute task impact is. Second, I recall some writing in the personal-finance genre which said that people often make more progress getting out of debt by paying their debts in order from small to large, ignoring the interest rate. This is more expensive than paying debts in order of high to low interest rate, but it may give you more of a feeling of progress when one of your debts disappears, even though that debt wasn't, in reality, causing much of a problem. By the time you get to more difficult debts, you're on a roll. This suggests that there is probably a place for configuring the priority scheme; absolute impact, impact per unit effort, and absolute effort are all reasonable choices.
- educated_idiot 6y ago
  Yep, IIUC what you are talking about is similar to the question others have raised about an "Effort" dimension. To keep the daily or slightly more long term planning simple, I opted to not consider those dimensions. You raise a good point and I need to give it some thought. It has to be "complete" enough that you can prioritize properly, but easy enough that you can use it all the time. The finance example is a good one, but I think you could boil all the costs down to a single term for that case. (essentially it's just money lost). Just like the user makes a choice there, the expectation here is that the user will formulate an impact-effort code in their mind and add a task.
  - kingofpandora 6y ago
    How about offering, say, three effort options, reflected in the size of the circle in the matrix?
tobyhinloopen 6y ago
Local storage only and no accounts is a feature to me
- educated_idiot 6y ago
  Haha, IKR! Too many accounts :D
- bko 6y ago
  A really cool feature would be to be able to "save" and share charts by setting the url parameters: e.g. https://ballertodo.com?n=first;second;third&i=0.5,0.3,0.7&u=1.0,0.4,0.3 https://ballertodo.com?n=first;second;third&i=0.5,0.3,0.7&u=... Then you can just bookmark the link or share w/ someone
  - faeyanpiraat 6y ago
    There is a limit to url length
    - bko 6y ago
      Correct, safely you can make the url 2,000 chars [0]. The base will be 29 chars (https://ballertodo.com?n=u=i= https://ballertodo.com?n=u=i=) Then each additional todo would be 6 chars (impact and urgency score to 2 decimal places e.g. .65, 1., .7) + the length of the name So assuming the average to-do name is 14 chars, you can safely fit 98 to-dos in the url ((2000 - 30) / (14 + 6)) If the name is 40 chars, you can fit ~41 I think that will fit 90+% of use cases. [0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the-maximum-length-of-a-url-in-different-browsers https://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the-maxim...
      - educated_idiot 6y ago
        Eventually, depending on how it goes, the URL will contain a key to some DB entry, so multi-device persistence can work. Adding all this to the URL is doable too, I might just start with that, thanks for the idea ;)
bot41 6y ago
> The app currently uses local storage only This means I can actually use it. My data stays with me? Nice!
k4rli 6y ago
Don't put the tooltip on the task so close to the draggable circle. On mobile my finger basically blocks the entire tooltip and it's not readable.

An app to visualize and organize your tasks in an Impact/ Urgency matrix. The app currently uses local storage only, no accounts yet. Would love some feedback :)

m00x 6y ago

Who is this for? I feel like PMs will just put everything in the top right corner.

raunakdag 6y ago
Maybe some sort of form to input details about task to automatically assign the two variables?
- educated_idiot 6y ago
  I think that complicates the UI a tiny bit. Right now, the user can drag any task to place the task anywhere. I don't think numeric fields make for pleasant UI. I could be wrong though. Will keep this point in mind, if more folks complain, will work it in :)
educated_idiot 6y ago
Good question. This isn't for PMs. This actually should not be used for large/ group projects. As you rightly said, a PM will put everything in top-right. This was intended for self-prioritization.
- ampersandy 6y ago
  The imaginary PM stereotype everyone likes to bash would do that, real teammates you work with that respect your time will work with you to plot things in a way that better reflects the team/organization’s shared priorities :) Don’t sell this short because of an imaginary threat (rampant PM abuse)!
  - educated_idiot 6y ago
    Fair enough, that's a good point. My spouse is a PM and when I asked them to use this, they actually ended up using all quads except for Bottom Right (Low Impact, High Urgency). So your points stands, a competent team will correctly prioritise.
    - loopz 6y ago
      What people do you have? Every owner will put it in top right corner. The reason is organizational neglect and lack of due process. Just happened again some weeks ago, and due to org, was sadly necessary.
      - educated_idiot 6y ago
        Haha, take the other people out of the equation. This is more about self-prioritization. How your team/ org works/ prioritises depends on a variety of factors and I do not think any single framework will serve all those. This is not even attempting to solve that need.
        loopz 6y ago
        It's a neat idea, though I too started over-engineering planning for myself. Over time a simple text-list works well for me. Quadrants is more a communication and collaboration tool. Looks like nice work though. Besides, if someone asks, they always get response.
        educated_idiot 6y ago
        Yeah, planning is a double edged sword. And I don't believe one tool works for everyone or all needs. Our brains and thought processes are too varied to all fit in opinionated frameworks. Yeah, I posted here for the feedback/ response. Trying to improve my understanding of UX/UI and no better way than to get users to tell you :D
swyx 6y ago
if that's your impression of PM's you're either not being fair to the PM's you work with or you need to work with better PM's.
- 0df8dkdf 6y ago
  Na, PMs who do that should all be beaten senselessly with a baseball bat, metaphorically of course? ;-)
codingdave 6y ago
If your PMs would do such a thing, they don't understand the role of a PM.

gabaix 6y ago

Great job! You could mention it is an inspiration from the Eisenhower Matrix. This aims to solve the urgency trap. First time I see a tool made for it. I will give it a try!

educated_idiot 6y ago
Thanks! Definitely, should mention that somewhere

thaumasiotes 6y ago

Is there a metric for the ease of completing a task? This could be relevant in two ways. First, task impact per unit of effort is technically a better measure of how worthwhile it is to complete the task than absolute task impact is. Second, I recall some writing in the personal-finance genre which said that people often make more progress getting out of debt by paying their debts in order from small to large, ignoring the interest rate. This is more expensive than paying debts in order of high to low interest rate, but it may give you more of a feeling of progress when one of your debts disappears, even though that debt wasn't, in reality, causing much of a problem. By the time you get to more difficult debts, you're on a roll. This suggests that there is probably a place for configuring the priority scheme; absolute impact, impact per unit effort, and absolute effort are all reasonable choices.

educated_idiot 6y ago
Yep, IIUC what you are talking about is similar to the question others have raised about an "Effort" dimension. To keep the daily or slightly more long term planning simple, I opted to not consider those dimensions. You raise a good point and I need to give it some thought. It has to be "complete" enough that you can prioritize properly, but easy enough that you can use it all the time. The finance example is a good one, but I think you could boil all the costs down to a single term for that case. (essentially it's just money lost). Just like the user makes a choice there, the expectation here is that the user will formulate an impact-effort code in their mind and add a task.
- kingofpandora 6y ago
  How about offering, say, three effort options, reflected in the size of the circle in the matrix?

tobyhinloopen 6y ago

Local storage only and no accounts is a feature to me

educated_idiot 6y ago
Haha, IKR! Too many accounts :D
bko 6y ago
A really cool feature would be to be able to "save" and share charts by setting the url parameters: e.g. https://ballertodo.com?n=first;second;third&i=0.5,0.3,0.7&u=1.0,0.4,0.3 https://ballertodo.com?n=first;second;third&i=0.5,0.3,0.7&u=... Then you can just bookmark the link or share w/ someone
- faeyanpiraat 6y ago
  There is a limit to url length
  - bko 6y ago
    Correct, safely you can make the url 2,000 chars [0]. The base will be 29 chars (https://ballertodo.com?n=u=i= https://ballertodo.com?n=u=i=) Then each additional todo would be 6 chars (impact and urgency score to 2 decimal places e.g. .65, 1., .7) + the length of the name So assuming the average to-do name is 14 chars, you can safely fit 98 to-dos in the url ((2000 - 30) / (14 + 6)) If the name is 40 chars, you can fit ~41 I think that will fit 90+% of use cases. [0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the-maximum-length-of-a-url-in-different-browsers https://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the-maxim...
    - educated_idiot 6y ago
      Eventually, depending on how it goes, the URL will contain a key to some DB entry, so multi-device persistence can work. Adding all this to the URL is doable too, I might just start with that, thanks for the idea ;)

bot41 6y ago

> The app currently uses local storage only This means I can actually use it. My data stays with me? Nice!

k4rli 6y ago

Don't put the tooltip on the task so close to the draggable circle. On mobile my finger basically blocks the entire tooltip and it's not readable.