The 6 Biggest Benefits of Task Level Planning

Task Level Planning has the following benefits:

• Have more fun at work and stay motivated
• Be able to estimate your work
• Be more productive

As these are great benefits, we will shortly explain what task level planning means, then look at examples of it and finally we will see the six benefits of task level planning.

1. What is Task Level Planning?

It was another weekend in which our client Joe was reflecting on why he was not advancing on building the recruitment software his client had asked him to work on. He had meant to get started for a long time, but somehow could not find the right way to start.
Then we did one exercise that changed everything: we started to plan the project in detail and divide the whole project into subprojects and the subprojects into tasks and the tasks into subtasks. After 1 hour of splitting the top level goals into projects, tasks and subtasks, Joe had finally gotten clarity on what needed to be done. Now he could not wait to get started with the work.
The above was a case of task level planning, in which we split projects into tasks and tasks into subtasks.
This is quite different from high level planning, which is also called project level planning. In project level planning we do not go into details. Instead we would consider these general questions:

• How many resources does the project need?
• What is the overall timeline?
• What does the overall Gantt chart look like?
• What team members are required?

Task level planning on the other hand is a low level planning that focuses on how specifically a project can be implemented by determining each task and subtask. Thus, for task level planning we need to:

• Split the big project into smaller milestones
  • Split the smaller milestones into tasks
    • Split the tasks into actionable subtasks

In other words, task level planning is continuously spitting up projects or big tasks into smaller tasks until we arrive at actionable tasks.
Therefore, task level planning is similar to the concept of mind maps, where you draw a tree structure and go from the general concept to continuously more detailed branches.

For example, let’s say we have a large project to develop a software. This project needs to be split into tasks and subtasks. The different levels of splitting up the project could look as follows:

• Ultimate goal: software
  • Main functions/projects: authentication
    • Subprojects: social login
      • Task: develop Facebook authentication
        • Subtask: research a new library on Facebook authentication

2. How I Got to Love Task Level Planning

Task level planning has great benefits. But before we look at them, I want to show you how I discovered the power of task level planning for myself.

2.1. Inspired by Mind Maps

I was doing my bachelor degree when I read a book on mind maps. I found it a useful concept and became a mind map power user, as they helped me structure knowledge. This in turn enabled me to complete four bachelor degrees in only two years always placing at the top of the class.

2.2. Discovering new method to take law exams

After finishing my four bachelors degrees, I entered law school, and was able to complete the degree in ¼ th of the regular time with top grades. My secret was using mind map structures to solve the tough five hour law exams. While other students would start to answer the exam questions as soon as possible, I would use the first half of the allotted time to only plan my answers by making a very detailed mind map structure. Only once I had the detailed structure and almost three hours into the exam would I start writing out the actual answers. But this was extremely fast as I already had the complete solution.
This way I became one of the top law students and completed my law degree that generally takes five years to complete in just one year.

2.3. Better and faster writing

I then applied this method to my writing in general, for example to write this article: before I write even one word of text I make a mind map like structure. First, a general one and then an increasingly detailed one. And only once every idea is in the structure, will I start to actually write the article.

2.4. Better and faster programming

I later discovered that this detailed planning can increase the productivity of almost any work including software programming.
My programmers were not big fans of planning, and thus started working on a new software project with only a rough plan. Then they spent the next four months developing, only to arrive at a point when they wanted to redevelop the product from scratch. They justified this by saying that now that they understood the product 100% they would be able to provide better code quality and it would only take two weeks to finish rewriting the code.
This made me realize that in fact the first development was nothing more than a detailed plan on how to build the software. Once that was clear it was easy to write the code for the final product.
Since then I have led many development teams to make detailed mind map structures before starting to actually code, and have discovered that by making these task level plans we can increase the quality of code and reduce development time significantly.
When I am using mind map structures to plan law exams, writing content or programming software I am in fact doing task level planning, because I am splitting the general objectives into projects, tasks and subtasks.

3. The 6 Biggest Benefits of Task Level Planning

Above we have already seen examples on how task level planning enables teams to be more productive and get things finished earlier. Here, we will look at each of the biggest benefits of task level planning.

3.1. Avoid rework

Task level planning allows us to avoid wasting time from having to rework!
It is common for teams that do not do task level planning to start working on a project only to discover later that they have to rework what they thought they already had completed. For example, I was working with a development team that worked for four months on a piece of software, only to tell me that they had made some mistakes and thus wanted to redevelop the whole thing from scratch.
Therefore, you should split your work into small pieces so that you know each task you need to do. This way you are less likely to do it incorrectly, and thus avoid rework.

3.2. Foresee bottlenecks

Task level planning also allows us to foresee bottlenecks!
Bottlenecks are things that can prevent other tasks from being accomplished and therefore delay the project if they are not recognized early.
Let's imagine you are developing an online banking app. While you are able to build the technology, in order to launch it to the public, you need licenses from the regulator that take several months to obtain. So if you get the product ready for launch and only then start asking for the permission, your project might be delayed by several months.
With task level planning, you split the launch into all the subtasks already at the start of the project and realize that the bank license needs to be taken care of early on, so that it does not become a bottleneck.

3.3. Work faster

Task level planning can save us time by enabling us to work faster!
While the main argument against task level planning is that it takes too much time, in fact the opposite is true: task level planning saves time.
This is because planning needs to be done anyway, in one way or another. If you don't do task level planning before you start the implementation of a project, then you will have to do a lot of planning in between the implementation of the project.
In addition, when you have a very clear idea of all the tasks and subtasks that are needed you can schedule tasks better and avoid delays.

3.4. Estimate time

Task level planning allows you to estimate the time of completion of a project!
Estimating the time to complete big projects is inherently difficult. The only way to do this is by splitting big projects into subprojects, and those into tasks and subtasks, and then estimating the time of completion of each subtask. Each subtask is generally easy to estimate and summing up all subtasks we get to the total time estimate for the project.

3.5. Work together

Task level planning enables teams to work together on the same project!
When you don't split a project into tasks and subtasks it is hard to assign it to more than one person; everybody that is working on the project would have to be assigned the same project and their work would often overlap.
On the other hand, when you split up a project into tasks and subtasks, you can assign different tasks and subtasks to different team members. This way they can complete the project without doing the same work twice.

3.6. Motivate

Task level planning gives you motivation as big projects appear to be more achievable when they are split into smaller tasks!
When you do not split into tasks and subtasks the overall project can often seem too far removed to be motivational. For example, when you are climbing Mount Everest, the top might seem too far away for you to believe that you can reach it. But if you divide the whole distance into daily milestones and then every day only focus on the next milestone, the goal seems more achievable and therefore more motivational.

4. How To Do Task Level Planning

We have already seen above that task level planning is essentially done by creating a mind map, in which you split goals into projects and projects into tasks. So you go from the high level goals to continuously lower levels until you reach the level of action. This process is done by asking the question “how?”:

1. How can I reach my ultimate goals? -> by accomplishing projects!
2. How can I accomplish my projects? -> by accomplishing tasks!
3. How can I accomplish my tasks -> by accomplishing actionable subtasks!

Doing this planning from high level to low level using the traditional unorganized mind map can become cumbersome. Therefore, I recommend just using a structured,indented list. Using an indented list you first want to write down the high level goals. Then you write down the required projects for each of the goals by indenting them. Then you write down the tasks for each project below the project by indenting it a level further. In the end you have a nicely structured list organized according to your top level goals.
As the list will change over time, as your objectives change and you are completing tasks, you don't want to create this list on paper but with a software that can automatically update the information. Unfortunately, creating such a goal structure needed for task level planning is not feasible in the most popular project management systems. For that reason we had to create our own software, called Workiamo.

Workiamo is a Work Management Software that is based on the Focus Cycles Productivity System and is extremely simple. It is ideal for anybody that wants to be less stressed and more productive. As you are reading this, you have earned free, lifetime access! Register at www.workiamo.com by entering this code: ILOVEWORK.

We have seen above that task level planning has many advantages and virtually no disadvantages. Therefore, when you are working on a project or a big task you should always split it into small tasks and subtasks first, and only start working once you can see the full structure of top level goals, projects, tasks and subtasks.