If you’re a fan of any flavor of the procrastination dash, this one might come in handy for you. I’ve started scheduling some of my work in time-based dashes — right in iCal.

If you start the name of the task with the number of minutes in the dash, you have a very easy to way to see items that can be knocked down quickly (hint: sort “To Dos by Title”). E.g.:

• 05dash - File archived folders
• 10dash - Sort Salvation Army pile
• 15dash - Respond to email
• 20dash - Fix site bugs, per list

Note that, using this format, you can also perform a fast search on any/all tasks that are “dash-able” at a given time.

This can even be a nice, game-time way to plan your day based on “natural planning,” meaning you could, theoretically, use this as a way to do time estimates for most any of your tasks based on how “hot” they are at the time (or how badly you’ve been putting them off). It’s probably more trouble than it’s worth for most of us, but if you’re someone whose work only affords sudden and small windows of opportunity, it could be a real life saver.