The findings suggest that the “smaller tasks trap” can lead to the completion of local sub-goals, and produce a sense of tangible progress, but impede achieving the larger more beneficial goal.

In addition, participants who chose to start with a smaller task tended to persevere with the smaller tasks throughout the experiment, and ended up with a much higher percentage of smaller tasks, compared to the participants who started with a larger task. In this case, starting with a smaller task does not appear to be the outcome of a planned strategic move aimed at increasing the total utility in the long run (e.g., by warming up and enhancing the ability to address the larger and more beneficial tasks). This relates back to previous research discussing flawed evaluations of task management, which could possibly be due to avoidance. 

Discussion of Results (The Psychology of Task Management: The Smaller Tasks Trap)

1. A question for further investigation is what motivated the participants to attend to the larger tasks first and how that differed from those who chose to start with smaller tasks. 
2. It is important to note that although the game simulated a real-life environment of multiple tasks, it constitutes a simplified version of reality. 
3. Several complexities present outside the lab were not reflected in the game (e.g., a more diverse set of tasks). In addition, the cost/benefit of the tasks was explicitly displayed which isn't the case in real life. 

Limitations (The Psychology of Task Management: The Smaller Tasks Trap)

1. The findings suggest that the “smaller tasks trap” can lead to the completion of local sub-goals, and produce a sense of tangible progress, but impede achieving the larger more beneficial goal. 
2. When faced with large projects or too many tasks, it can be easy to lose sight of the bigger goal and focus on sub-goals, which can hurt efficiency. 
3. While starting off with a smaller task isn't bad in itself, it is important to organize tasks focusing on the larger goal to prevent falling into the smaller tasks trap.


Implications (The Psychology of Task Management: The Smaller Tasks Trap)

1. Discussion of Results
2. Limitations
3. Implications

Point Loma Nazarene University

A study designed to examine whether participants were prone to the "small tasks trap" bias and the impact of starting with a smaller task or larger task on overall performance through a task management game. 

The Psychology of Task Management: The Smaller Tasks Trap

Rusou, Z., Amar, M., & Ayal, S. (2020). The Psychology of task management: The smaller tasks trap. Judgement and Decision Making, 15(4), 586–599. 

1. Previous research shows that people are motivated to minimize cognitive effort needed to achieve tasks, but also minimize the “time on task”
2. Flawed evaluations of task information might yield a suboptimal preference for smaller tasks. Focusing on the local (rather than global) level of the goal might create a tendency to start with the smaller tasks and stick to them, even when this strategy results in being less rewarding than prioritizing larger tasks 
3. To better understand the considerations driving a task prioritization, an incitive-compatible task management game was created 

Introduction (The Psychology of Task Management: The Smaller Tasks Trap)

The phenomenon where individuals consistently choose to address smaller tasks first (defined as involving less work), and continue to focus on smaller tasks, even when it is less efficient. 

“Smaller Tasks Trap”

1. Simulated a real-life, multiple-tasks environment in a real estate company. Participants were presented with 30 tasks (15 smaller tasks and 15 larger tasks) each requiring retrieval of information from a price-list of apartments.
2. Participants were required to make repeated task scheduling choices within a fixed time interval of 15 minutes. During this time, they could earn points to enter lotteries for shopping coupons. (The number of points earned were contingent on the number and type of tasks completed). 
3. Since participants were informed they couldn’t complete all the takes within the allotted timeframe, their goal was to schedule tasks in a way that would maximize the overall number of points earned. 

Learn Before

Related

Learn After