Let’s talk about one of those systems: Personal Kanban.
What Is Personal Kanban?
Personal Kanban, put simply, is a simple system for managing your to-dos.
Personal Kanban stands on two major “rules:”
Visualize Your Work.
We’ve highligheda number of ways to visualize your to-do list, including Personal Kanban.
Limit Your Work In Progress (WIP).
In other words, limit the number of things you work on at the same time.
This does two things.
Second, it also helps you avoidthe dangers of multitasking, not to mentionburnout.
Managing your workload carefully also teaches youhow to say nowithoutwrecking your career.
From there, how you go about actually implementing Personal Kanban is mostly up to you.
There are no official tools or products (beyond the book, of course).
How to Get Started with Personal Kanban
Getting started with Personal Kanban is easy.
The key is how they’re organized.
A simple board is nothing more than a chart with three vertical columns:Backlog/To-Do,Doing, andDone.
That’s a simple Kanban.
Whiteboards are perfect for Personal Kanban.
It’s easy to draw columns, then add and erase to-dos quickly.
This makes them easy to move without rewriting.
While the Kanban is important, it’s really just a functional way to visualize your to-dos.
The second rule, remembering to limit your work in progress, is important as well.
Benson and DeMaria Barryexplain that it’s critical to keep your sequential work to a minimum.
This way your Kanban stays organized and actually useful.
Wehighlighted it when it launched, and we’veshown you how to organize your entire life with it.
All it’s crucial that you do is define your columns and start adding to-dos.
KanbanFlow also integrates a Pomodoro Timer to help you focus and get work done.
Plus, the site looks great on smartphones and tablets, no app required.
Evernote(withKanbanote): Evernote alone isn’t a particularly great Kanban solution.
It even adds the three Backlog/Doing/Done columns for you.
There’s even acompanion Android appyou can use on the go.
Of course, there’s nothing that says you have to use an app.
It can be helpful, especially if you rely on your gear to get things done.
Choose the one that works for you, and you’re hooked.
If you’re a fan of GTD or Pomodoro, you could still use Personal Kanban.
In fact, any system that uses a to-do list can benefit from the Personal Kanban approach.
Look at your own to-do list, and how you have it organized.
It’s that simple.
Try not to juggle too much at once.
The rest are details that are up to you to mold into your perfectand most productiveworkflow.
Photos byKanban Tool,Pumsuk Cho,Dennis Hamilton, andNadja Schnetzler.
