More luck point needed? Try these simple tricks

Alright folks, gather ’round! Today I’m spillin’ the beans on somethin’ I’ve been messin’ with lately – I’m calling it “luck point”. Don’t get too excited; it’s just a fancy name for a little script I threw together.

So, it all started when I was staring blankly at my screen, trying to figure out what to work on next. You know those days where everything seems equally unappealing? Yeah, one of those. I thought, “What if I could just… randomize it?”

The Initial Idea:

• I wanted a simple way to pick a task from a list.
• I wanted it to feel a little more “fun” than just a random number generator.
• I wanted to be able to weight the options – some tasks are more important (or dreaded) than others!

Getting My Hands Dirty:

First, I cracked open my trusty text editor and started jotting down the tasks I was considering. I figured a plain text file would be the easiest way to manage it. Each line was a task. Looked something like this:

Clean the garage

Write that blog post

Fix the leaky faucet


Next, I needed a way to assign “weights” to each task. I decided to just add a number after each task, separated by a comma. Higher number = higher priority (or higher chance of getting picked, however you want to think about it).

Fix the leaky faucet,5


Okay, data’s ready. Now for the actual scripting. I decided to use Python because it’s quick and dirty, and I didn’t want to overthink this. Here’s roughly what I did:

1. Read the file: I opened the text file and read each line into a list.
2. Parse the data: For each line, I split it into the task description and the weight.
3. Create a weighted list: I created a new list where each task appeared multiple times, based on its weight. So, if a task had a weight of 3, it would appear 3 times in the new list.
4. Randomly pick: I used Python’s function to pick a random element from the weighted list.
5. Print the result: I printed the chosen task to the console.

The (Crude) Code:

I’m not gonna paste the whole thing, because it’s ugly and probably full of bugs. But here’s the gist:

python

import random

def pick_task(filename):

tasks = []

with open(filename, 'r') as f:

for line in f:

task, weight = *().split(',')

*([task] int(weight)) # Create the weighted list

chosen_task = *(tasks)

print("You've been chosen to:", chosen_task)

pick_task('*') # Replace '*' with your actual filename

The Upshot:

I ran the script, and BAM! It told me to fix the leaky faucet. Figures. But hey, at least I didn’t have to decide myself! It actually did take some of the mental load off. It’s stupid, I know, but it worked!

Improvements (and Future Shenanigans):

This is a super basic implementation. Here are some things I’m thinking of adding:

• Command-line arguments: Instead of hardcoding the filename, I want to pass it as an argument.
• More sophisticated weighting: Maybe use a different scaling system than just a simple integer.
• Task completion tracking: Keep a log of tasks I’ve already done.
• Integration with a task management system: Now that would be fancy.

So, yeah, that’s “luck point”. A dumb little script to make deciding what to do slightly less painful. Maybe it’ll inspire you to create your own procrastination-busting tool! Let me know if you do!