Personal Kanban
Yesterday I wrote about how it's important to not be productive on occasion in order to avoid burn out.
However, this presumes you were productive to begin with!
I have taken this summer off from billable work to work on a bunch of projects, both business related and personal stuff.
This means I needed to be a little more organized with my time.
I'm a fan of a simple to-do list, however, that doesn't cut it for more long term, complex projects.
So, I decided to sign up for a tool called Kanban Flow, which allows you to create Kanban boards for yourself or for your team.
If you don't know what Kanban is, it's basically a productivity system that allows you to list tasks or projects in "cards," and then put them in different columns to represent their status.
For example, you may list all your tasks in the "To-Do" column and then when you start working on it, put it in "In progress" and then when you completed it, put it in "Done."
Here's what my Kanban looks like at the moment:
At the beginning of the week, I schedule what I want to work on in my calendar.
I'm liking the system so far.
- The system is not overly burdensome to maintain
- It forces me to be realistic about my time constraints
- Tasks aren't "stuck in my bed," causing background anxiety
- It's flexible, meaning I can move things around if things pop up or if I simply don't want to do something
Of course, some times I blow off my planned tasks and take a nap instead. That's a given.
But on most days I make some progress on tasks that are important or simply required.
Over a long enough time period, this should add up to something useful/interesting valuable.
Want the full playbook? Check out Going 1099.