effortto

Effortto is a term used in some productivity and human-computer interaction discussions to describe a surrogate measure of the effort required to complete a task. It combines cognitive load, physical exertion, and time pressure into a single score. The concept appears in online articles and forums since the early 2020s and is not part of formal project-management standards.

The word is a portmanteau interpreted as shorthand for “effort to completion” or “effort-to-do.” It is used in informal contexts, with no single canonical definition or protocol, and implementations vary.

Definition and measurement: Effortto is typically a numeric score on a 0–100 scale, where higher values indicate greater overall effort. Scores may come from self-report surveys, expert estimates, or models that blend task complexity, expected duration, required skills, resources, interruptions, and motivation.

Applications and examples: Teams use effortto to compare tasks, plan capacity, or prioritize work. Example: debugging task 55, UI polish 25, data migration 75. In UX research, effortto can reflect changes that reduce user effort.

Limitations: The metric is subjective and context-dependent. Without standard definitions, cross-project comparisons may be unreliable, and biases in reporting or motivation can distort scores.

See also: effort, cognitive load, task difficulty, workload.