Faster tasks.json in VSCode?

Question

My goal is to configure VSCode to open a panel (or other certain tabs) upon startup, specifically when not opening a workspace (i.e. simply click on vscode icon and open the vscode app; basically I want to customize the welcome page). tasks.json is one way, but it is way too slow, see below.

Here is my tasks.json:

{
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
{
    "label": "open project manager",
    "command": "${command:workbench.view.extension.project-manager}",
    "type": "shell", //"process",
    "problemMatcher": [],
    "runOptions": {"runOn": "folderOpen"}
},
{
    "label": "open Panel",
    "command": "${command:workbench.action.togglePanel}",
    "type": "shell",
    "problemMatcher": [],
    "runOptions": {"runOn": "folderOpen"}
}
]
}

However, this takes around 5 seconds to open the panel, which is incredibly slow. It's even slower than manually using the command "view: toggle panel visibility." Is there a way to make tasks.json execute faster, or to set a higher priority for execution at startup? Plus, is there a better method than tasks.json?