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| Allocate Your Resources |
Allocate Your Resources
Resource allocation is a significant aspect of problem solving. While the problems in life are without end, your resources are limited so choices have to be made. Your limited resources include your time, money, physical resources, skills, expert knowledge, and good will.
Consider the classic case of writing a university exam. How much time should you allocate to answering any given question, and which questions should you attempt first? It is always reasonable to take a few minutes to read over all the questions at the beginning of an exam and rate their degree of difficulty. Then you should always answer the easy questions first. And you should allocate your time for each question according to a minutes-per-mark ratio. Suppose that you have 120 minutes to earn 100 marks; the implication is that a question worth 10 marks should be answered in approximately 12 minutes. Rating questions and establishing a marks-per-minute ratio provide useful guides for allocating your resources during an academic exam.
Resource allocation is a significant aspect of problem solving. While the problems in life are without end, your resources are limited so choices have to be made. Your limited resources include your time, money, physical resources, skills, expert knowledge, and good will.
Consider the classic case of writing a university exam. How much time should you allocate to answering any given question, and which questions should you attempt first? It is always reasonable to take a few minutes to read over all the questions at the beginning of an exam and rate their degree of difficulty. Then you should always answer the easy questions first. And you should allocate your time for each question according to a minutes-per-mark ratio. Suppose that you have 120 minutes to earn 100 marks; the implication is that a question worth 10 marks should be answered in approximately 12 minutes. Rating questions and establishing a marks-per-minute ratio provide useful guides for allocating your resources during an academic exam.
Home renovations provide another example of resource allocation and problem solving. While you may wish to totally renovate your home, your financial resources are probably limited and your patience in tolerating disruptions may also be limited.
You have to choose with care the extent of the changes that you can afford and the scheduling of renovation activities.
Every attempt at problem solving involves making choices and allocating resources. The allocation of your resources should be based on obtaining a reasonable chance of success while still holding some resources in reserve for dealing with any potential complications and unexpected emergency situations.
You have to choose with care the extent of the changes that you can afford and the scheduling of renovation activities.
Every attempt at problem solving involves making choices and allocating resources. The allocation of your resources should be based on obtaining a reasonable chance of success while still holding some resources in reserve for dealing with any potential complications and unexpected emergency situations.
