Task stack

A task stack is a nested set of tasks.

When accomplishing a task, you may realise that in order to finish it, you first need to do another task that it depends on; and after switching to that, you may notice yet another dependency.

I've taken to calling this the stack of tasks (based on how a CPU works, having a stacked list you can push things onto, then pop them off again in reverse order). I'm not sure if there's an official term or not, but others have suggested it's useful to have a term for this phenomenon.

For example, I might be trying to make a cup of coffee, but the carton of milk is nearly empty and it would deplete it, so I'd have to rinse out the carton then put it on the draining board, which is already full, so first I'll have to take out the recycling...

More cunning Autists than me take great care to work out which seemingly dependent tasks can actually be unlinked. For example, if you really need to make a cup of coffee right now, it's OK to leave that empty milk carton out afterwards. When you next see it, then you can do all those other tasks, with the energy afforded by the coffee.

In contrast, I gather allists don't plan this far ahead, and barely even notice the issues as they occur.

So my advice here, when getting stacked up with tasks, is to think about whether you can get away without doing them all, as some might not be as dependent on each other as they first seem.