In terms of personal productivity (single machine scheduling) when a task is interrupted before being done in order to switch to a different task, it incurres a 'tear down' time cost - putting tools, files, materials away etc. It also incurres a set-up cost when you pick it back up again - getting the tools, files, materials ready, reviewing the work that was previously done etc. Given a limited set of information about the task, how would one estimate the tear-down and set-up cost associated with interrupting a task?
Let's say that we have the following information:
Initial total estimated time to complete task.
Current estimated remaining time to complete task.
Task value (this could be an amount in $ or some other measure of importance)
Is there a good, recognized, heuristic to evaluate the time cost associated with interrupting a task? Maybe something as simple as "10% of the task's total estimated time".