Work Tools

Fifteen tools, and eight named on this page rather than half-built

**Eight of this group's twenty-three tools are a button, a clock, a camera or a microphone, and none of them is here.** A click counter, a clicks-a-second test, a reaction timer, a webcam mirror, a screen flashlight, a clipboard history and a room noise meter all need something this page does not have. A tool here is a function from one text to one result; a plausible half-version of any of those would be a tool that lies about what it measured.

**What would have been a clock became the plan instead, and says which half it is.** A speaker timer counts down; what is here is the running order it would count down through. An agenda timer tracks the overrun live; this one shows where the overrun lands, which is the half you want before the meeting rather than during it. A break reminder rings; this one writes the schedule. A time tracker runs; this one adds up the entries you kept, and counts the minutes between them that nobody recorded.

**A weight is yours, and a total made of weights is not a decision.** The decision matrix, the pros-and-cons list and the Eisenhower matrix all turn a judgement into arithmetic, which is useful for *seeing* the judgement and worthless as an authority. None of them says which option to take, and the matrix says when the top two are within a twentieth of each other — which is a matrix that has not decided anything.

**A screen has no size this page can know.** A browser reports pixels, not millimetres, and every screen ruler that assumes ninety-six dots an inch is wrong on most panels. So the ruler and the protractor *print* at the size they say, and the on-screen half is a calibration: hold a bank card against the glass — 85.60 mm by ISO 7810 — and it works your screen's scale out.

Deciding

Decision matrix
Scores several options against weighted criteria and shows how close the top two are.

Pros and cons
Weighs the arguments on each side and says which way, or that it is too close to call.

Eisenhower matrix
Sorts tasks into the four quadrants and says when the second one is empty.

Three-point estimate
Turns best, likely and worst into one figure, and adds the variances rather than the spreads.

Time

Time entries, totalled
Adds a day of entries up by task or tag, and counts the minutes nobody recorded.

Meeting running order
Puts a clock time on every item and says whether the agenda fits the booking.

Talk running order
Times a talk from its own start, with the two moments a timekeeper holds a card up.

Break schedule
Writes a day of work and breaks out in advance, with lunch in the middle of it.

To print

Printable ruler
A ruler that prints at the size it says, and a screen scale worked out from a bank card.

Printable protractor
A protractor drawn to the degree, with both scales so an angle is not read as its supplement.

Habit grid
A month of boxes to tick, or the streaks read back from a month you already ticked.

Shortcut sheet
Lays your shortcuts out in columns on real paper, and says which ones did not fit.

At the desk

Snippet filler
Fills the names in a template and says which ones had no value, in four notations.

Group splitter
Deals a list of names round into groups from a seed, so the same list splits the same way.

Desk heights
Desk, seat and monitor heights from your own, sitting and standing, with the ratios named.

Questions

Which eight tools of this group are not here?: A click counter, a multi-tally counter, a clicks-a-second test, a reaction timer, a webcam mirror, a screen flashlight, a clipboard history and a room noise meter. Each needs a button held down, a clock to be trusted, a camera or a microphone. Five others became the half of themselves that is a function — a running order rather than a countdown, a schedule rather than an alarm — and each says which half it is.
Why does the group splitter give the same groups every time?: Because a class list split twice in one afternoon should come out the same both times. The seed comes from the list itself when you leave the box empty, and it is printed so you can type it back; type a different word and you get different groups. That is the opposite of what a draw wants, and the right thing here.
How does the three-point estimate handle uncertainty?: It weights the likely case four times, which is what PERT is, and then adds the *variances* rather than the spreads. That is why a plan of five tasks is less uncertain in proportion than any one of them, and it is the thing the arithmetic exists to show. The confidence setting is one-sided, from published normal quantiles.
Is anything I type kept?: No. There is no account and no server: the page works the answer out and forgets it when you close the tab. That holds for the habit grid, the time entries and the list of names as much as for anything else.