The project holds significance both at the individual and societal levels. By unveiling the optimal sequencing strategy for mandatory tasks, the project sheds light on prevalent behavioural phenomena, encompassing unsuccessful commitment to predetermined plans, mental energy depletion, procrastination, and precrastination. This will comprehensively advance our understanding of human behaviour with economic frameworks. Moreover, its rich implications can extend to effective business strategies employing task scheduling, for instance, the order of innovative product development and launch, the optimal debt repayment schedule concerning distinct interest rates and deadlines, and priorities in customer service response for higher potential purchase rate. An optimal order of tasks contributes to higher efficiency and productivity, while a distortion in the schedule may compromise profitability and individuals’ well-being.

In addition, the extension in mechanism design has the potential to enhance interpersonal relationships on a broader scale. Psychological experiments have demonstrated that employees who have control over their task scheduling experience lower mental fatigue compared to those who work under prefixed orders (Hockey and Earle, 2006). This evidence supports the application in various contexts. For instance, professors can craft questions of varied difficulties in an optimal order to alleviate students’ pressure in an exam and improve test performance. In companies, an optimal design of salary and bonus systems can improve efficiency while respecting employees’ autonomy in task prioritization. The alignment of task orders can also optimize the mutual benefit of both the agent and the principal.

In summary, the strategic deployment of optimal task ordering serves as a catalyst for fostering efficiency, productivity, and coordination, resonating with the remits of ESRC to deepen the understanding of human behaviour and expand its applications across diverse scenarios.