I'm forming an algorithm to assign priority weights to certain jobs that need to be done. I need to integrate a factor of Must be done by time. Meaning, this job HAS to be run by a specific time.
I'm calculating the minutes until that time, e.g. 120 minutes from now, but how do I turn the larger the number into a lesser weight.
Example
Job 1: 300 minutes from now
Job 2: 12 minutes from now
Job 3: 25 minutes from now
I'm trying to just take the minutes from now values, and multiply them by an arbitrary multiplier. The issue is obvious. The 300 minutes would weight the most and the 25 minutes would weigh the least. I need the opposite. What's a good solution to this issue? I'm sure there's a pretty basic equation for this, so excuse my non-math-knowing skills.
FYI - the values that I'm assigning are arbitrary right now. I'll just tweak them and run scenarios until I feel the bias' are correct.
I think you intended inverse proportionality.
Given a set of jobs indexed with $j \in \{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$, and given time limits $t_j \in \mathbb{R}$ for each job $j$, the weights $w_j$ can be defined in the following way: $$ w_j = \displaystyle \frac{1}{t_j}. $$
Example
In this case the weights will be: $$ \begin{align} w_1 &= \frac{1}{300} \approx 0.00333\\ w_2 &= \frac{1}{12} \approx 0.08333\\ w_3 &= \frac{1}{25} = 0.4\\ \end{align} $$