Help: Work Order Management

Terminology

Work orders are a great thing. Once you have put together the task list for the day, you will find yourself often trying to figure out, what you should first work on. In many cases, you will just start with anything only to find out 4 hours later that you had better started with another task, because a phone call demands the results of another task. Or even worse, some of the tasks in your task list depend on other tasks and you should start with the latter ones first. So what can you do about it?

The answer is simple: think about it all before you start. Yeah you won't always be right, but most of the time that leads to a lot more productivity.

Work orders in PostTask allow you to do just that - think about it before you tackle it. Build your task list for the day and assign a number to each of the tasks, starting at 1. Start with the task that has the work order number 1, complete it and take the task with the next number. This will structure your day and will give you a leitmotif. Though, this may not work for all days or for all tasks, having some tasks in a work order will really help stay on focus. Try it out for yourself.

How to bring work orders up?

Per default, there are no work order numbers set up. To bring them up, just hover with your mouse over the space to the left of a task name. A little box will appear indicating a work order number of zero. As long as the work order number for a given task is zero, the box will disappear again when your mouse cursor moves away. If you increase it to 1, the box will stay. Read in the next section, how you can set up work order numbers to your needs.

Increasing & decreasing a work order number

To increase a work order number, just click on its corresponding box. To decrease a work order number, hold the alt key while clicking. We are not sure yet, whether increasing and decreasing your work order numbers should automatically increment or decrement all other work order numbers. If you have an opinion on the matter, please do not hesitate and send us feedback. This will help us greatly with fine-tuning work orders to your needs.

Is my work order saved?

By default, no. However, once you start increasing or decreasing work order numbers, a little 'Save' link just above your work orders will appear. By clicking on it, you will save your work, which will make it available again after any page refresh. This will be useful if you want to keep your work order, for example, after you have done the 'Rescheduling' after a finished day or you want to alter your profile and then go back to work.

"What did I work on before I got interrupted?"

Sometimes when you have many tasks in your list (well most of us do all the time) it is easy to lose sight of what you are currently working on. Imagine, for example, you get interrupted by a phone call by your boss or by your kid demanding your attention. After ten minutes or even longer you come back and have to think again for ten seconds what you were working on before you got interrupted. PostTask to the rescue.

To save you the ten seconds ten times a day (which is 100 seconds per day or more than 10 hours of wasted time per year), you can highlight the task you are currently working on. Just hold the shift key while clicking on a work order box and it will be highlighted. Once you come back from your interruption you will see the highlighted box and can get back to work immediately. Shift-clicking on another box will highlight that one instead.

Hidden features / Tips

How you do it	What happens
Hover with the mouse over the space left of a task.	Bring up the task's work order box.
Click on a task's work order box.	Increase the work order number for that task.
Hold the alt-key while clicking on a task's work order box.	Decrease the work order number for that task.
Hit the save button above all work order boxes. It only appears after you have changed any work order number.	Save your work order.