my little kanban board

[keryx]

A little while ago, I posted about Benson's Personal Kanban series. My at-home approach to planning and prioritizing work has devolved into "keep it all in my head; consider eventually freaking out about incomplete contents of head". So. I've adopted a miniature version of this concept.




I keep two running backlog lists: Ready work and Coming work. Ready can be brought in as soon as I've cleared a spot for it, based on my perceived priority (which is vulnerable to the influence of whatever may be in my mind right now); Coming is stuff I will want to deal with but have incomplete information about or a reason I couldn't tackle it in the next 2 weeks. Some "Coming" work may need to be pre-worked, but mostly it's just not the right time, or I'm waiting for something to happen. It's all written in shorthand that only I get, so while I think about value, it doesn't look obvious in the items you see. There are things on that list like "Anna" (which I know means I'm taking Friday afternoon off to enjoy Busch Gardens, but you don't just reading it).

From there, non-routine activities (that is, things that aren't "buy groceries", "go to work" or "spend time with nearest and dearest") are slotted into a handful of categories (coaching stuff, social activities, creative work, administrative fuss). Each category has a maximum number of work-in-progress (WIP) slots at any time; I stole this from a preschool kanban board (on Benson's blog) that sorted kids into activities. The categorization thing breaks down a little, though: I am only one person, so if I keep finishing administrative fuss work, I may never attack coaching assignments. It doesn't follow Lean logic, but it does make any imbalance in my life glaringly obvious - if I'm moving 4 things out of one category every day, but keep the same two creative items on the board for a week... are those items wrong-sized? or am I shortchanging my creative life?

There's a body category, too - the physical activities I plan to do in a week. That has become non-routine, and it's an issue of balance as well as health for me. So. That work really doesn't fit this model, but needs to be made visible. I imagine a better way will be figured out.

It's new & imperfect, and is helping me feel both more useful and more relaxed. If I were in a household of people, I still suspect a Scrum-like approach to work planning & tracking would be cooler, more useful - certainly more inclined to facilitate planning conversations. I think houses need those. But a single person? Maybe not so much.

Comments

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

And here I leave the requisite "please come organize my life" comment.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

You seem to be quite organized already! What goals would you like help with? I cannot resist an opportunity to coach someone through a process. *GRIN*

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I think it's mainly about time management. I can go full tilt or I can shut down but I caN't seem to find a comfortable place in between. I am so burnt out right now and yet still bitter at all the fun stuff I'm missing because of the fun stuff I already planned.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Yes, I think some form of work in progress limit is the tool for you. Can you tell me how you make decisions about what "work" (including fun stuff!) you will do now? And what types of "work" you want to manage?

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

Email inbox. Some paper lists. Tabs in browser.

Mostly email inbox though - I email myself things. I decide which thing I will tackle based on mood and how much time I can commit to the thing at that moment.

Work I want to manage: Blogging, school applications at the moment, social calendar/rock show managing, HOUSE THINGS, which that last I totally ignore 100% of the time. And I feel like there are other things I don't even know about right now, and would have to look for.

There is this whole list of stuff that never makes it on the list. Meditation work. Playing music. Reading. I have some really big tasks - like completely redoing the spare room that I wish I could hire someone to help me with.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Here's my suggestion. I'm guessing email is useful because it's location-independent? If so, you can do this with google docs. You could also do it on a physical board (which is tied to a location, but visible so you don't have to remember it) or in a software service sorta tool (which could remind you, but would probably cost money or require you to accommodate someone else's process).

Step 1. Gather a list of everything you have that you want to do in the next month (or longer if you think further out). Include meditation & reading - hell, include eating dinner if that's non-routine - anything that feels like it needs to be organized to you. Leave out the things you do automatically.

Step 2. Group those things into a handful of categories. Whatever is meaningful to you. This grouped list is now your "backlog". If you're using a board to do this, leave this on the left column.

Step 3. Figure out roughly how many things you can comfortable have in progress at a time. Also, think about what's important to you goal-wise for the next cycle. I tend to think of tasks as completing in 2 week cycles, cause I was a project manager for 10 years and now an agilist, and I just think in 2 week increments. You might think in days or weeks, whatever. The important thing in this process is to have no more than 3 overarching goals you want to accomplish.

Step 4. Make a blank list or board, like an empty spreadsheet. It should have only as many cells/rows/boxes/lines as you figured out you could have work in progress. This is your WIP limit. On a board, this is your middle column.

Step 5. Prioritize your backlog. Bring in work items until you reach your WIP limit. Then stop. Do that work. You may want to work in priority order, top-to-bottom, or you may want to make sure you're doing something from each category. During a hard period, maybe you want to add 10 meditation work items over 2 weeks.

Step 6. When a work item is complete, move it to a 3rd column/category: DONE. You may now move something from the backlog to your WIP list. Complete the higher priority items first (usually - you can bend that rule).

Step 7: After a day/week/2 week cycle, look at what you've moved over to DONE. Did you finish what you thought you would? Are any of those work items waste (not useful to you)? Anything particularly easy or hard? Anything not get done that you said you would? Use all of that to decide if you still have the right WIP limit, and to prioritize your remaining work. You may find that you need something between WIP and DONE (like a "really in progress, not just thinking about it").

You can add new things to your backlog anytime. You can only add things to WIP when you have an empty slot, and even then the thing you add needs to be more important than anything else you leave on your backlog.

My theory behind this plan:
- Time management for you is challenging because you're managing to tasks as they come up. Thinking of goals will help you say "you know what, that's not a goal this week - I will think about that later".
- Having a backlog of tasks is useful no matter what. In your case, it can be a place to put all the emails that come up.
- The backlog categories help you address potentially overlooked types of work (playing music, meditating) by drawing your attention to them. You can still decide not to do anything from those categories, but it will be deliberate.
- And the WIP limit forces you to say no to things, which you're already doing. I'm hoping that in combination with goals & your backlog, it will keep you from burning out but also allow you to put things on the map for the future.
- My plan for you is different from my plan for me, because you asked for time management, and what I was struggling with was balance - focusing way too much on one area to the detriment of others.

If you try this, let me know how it goes. It should be something you can start within a couple of hours. Doesn't need to be perfect, since you'll refine it after the first round (and the 2nd, and the nth) anyhow.

[etehigraphy.livejournal.com]

I liked this personal kanban idea. I've written a couple other task tracking / todo list / calendar type applications before so I figured I would try this one out and see how things went. I have a preliminary application up at http://ejefe.com:8080/kanban. Checked it out, let me know what you think!

[etehigraphy.livejournal.com]

I saw you signed up, but didn't login. Thanks! It looks like you used your email address as the Username rather than your username (keryx). I'll change that post-registration page to avoid future hassles, but for now - that was the problem. Here's hoping for that elusive second chance.