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What is Personal Kanban?
Kanban originates from the Toyota Production System. It is a method of work management. From Japanese, Kanban is translated as a “signboard.” The Kanban method laid the foundation of Lean manufacturing with its core purpose of minimizing waste activities without hurting productivity.
Recently, professional areas have started to apply the Kanban method, especially in the software development and project management area. Personal Kanban is a time management and productivity system which visualizes the work and our personal life events on the so-called Kanban-style boards.
The personal Kanban system follows two simple rules – work visualization and limiting work-in-progress (WIP). Since multitasking is a productivity killer, personal Kanban promotes focus and flow, helping us concentrate and complete our work faster and better.
With a personal Kanban system, you can manage work-related projects (web development, accounting, recruitment, sales, and much more) or life-related events (organizing family chores, planning a wedding, and so on).
Personal Kanban Articles
Personal Kanban and Gmail Email
Kanban, as a popular framework used for agile implementation in software development, could be successfully implemented to the way you manage emails and tasks that come from emails.
Personal Kanban Articles
Personal Kanban and Outlook Email
Using personal Kanban board to visualize your work is the perfect approach to productivity. Personal Kanban is gaining considerable popularity because it requires minimal effort to learn and is easy to adapt.
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Learn Personal Kanban with Flow-e
Step-by-step instructions on how to drive a Kanban project with Flow-e.
What are Personal Kanban Boards?
A personal Kanban board could be physical or digital. Its role is to transform our work and personal tasks into a visual workflow.
A basic Kanban board has a three-step workflow: To Do, In progress, Done. Personal Kanban is one of the best approaches to kill multitasking and increase the productivity of anything you do.
The visualization of our work with personal Kanban board is gaining significant popularity because it is a system, simple to use and easy to adapt.
Personal Kanban is a philosophy of self-management — tasks and time. The two core principles we have to apply are:
1) Visualise your work
Visualizing tasks and priorities is crucial in a Kanban system. The idea is that you don’t spend time making or reading lists or redefining priorities; you can see everything at a glance.
This is important because of the way the brain works. 90% of the information processed by the brain is visual. We process images 60,000 times faster than text. Images are stored in our long-term memory, while words are stored in our short-term memory.
By making your To-Dos visual, it’s fast and intuitive to identify backlogs and priorities, re-allocate resources, and understand your workload comprehensively.
Also, the visualization of completed work helps you recognize your accomplishments and reward yourself for progress made.
2) Limit your work in progress (WIP)
Limiting the current tasks to one at a time allows you to focus and complete the task more quickly and accurately than working on several things at once.
Kanban seeks to remove distractions, create clarity, and focus your many projects down into one simple step at a time.
The great thing about Kanban is that it’s compatible with other existing productivity and project management systems.
While you can create your first personal Kanban board using a physical board and some stickers, the best option is to use an online (virtual) Kanban board.
The online Kanban board is accessible from multiple locations, and you can always check your to-dos and in-progress tasks from wherever you are.
What are Kanban Cards?
The core element of each Kanban board is a Kanban card. Cards could be physical – if you are using a physical Kanban board, or digital – if you are using an online Kanban board. Each Kanban card represents a task that needs to be executed.
Nowadays, information across digital Kanban cards provides an advantage for both onsite and remote teams, because digital Kanban boards and cards are accessible from anywhere as long as you have a mobile device and an internet connection.
The visible part of the card gives you basic information about the task – title, description, to-dos, who has been assigned to, etc. This is the front side of the Kanban card, and it provides you with a quick overview of the task.
The back side of the card is visible when you open it. You can leave notes and comments; you can attach files and external links, you can also write some text in the body of the Kanban card.
Also, Kanban cards may be configured in different ways to show relevant information such as to-dos, deadlines, subtasks, and much more.
In summary, Kanban cards visualize workflow and help you to:
· Quickly review details about the work tasks on the Kanban board;
· Transform any crucial documentation as a work task;
· Minimize waste time;
· Pigeonhole opportunities for collaboration.
What is a Kanban WIP Limit and Why Do You Need It?
Multitasking is a productivity killer. The more work we add, the more likely it is for us to forget and drop something.
When we work on too many things at a given time, we usually end up juggling our work. And even if we set work aside, our brain is still thinking about the unfinished work, creating existential overhead.
This leads to being less focused and less productive. This is why work-in-progress (WIP) limits are applied in personal Kanban. You pull only as much work tasks as you can handle at a time.
Also, limiting work in progress principle allows you to complete your tasks faster. Harvard Business Review conducts an experiment, where they prove that by focusing on only one task, you can achieve better completion time than by working on two or more work tasks at the same time.
How Can a Personal Kanban Tool (Software) be Applied to Work and Life?
A personal Kanban tool is a software or an application that allows you to execute your work by applying the Kanban methodology. A personal Kanban tool allows you to visualize your work with the help of a Kanban board.
In the simplest form, a personal Kanban board consist of three columns (labeled from left to right):
· To-Do;
· Doing;
· Done.
Kanban tools are collaborative. This means that people (or your teammates) have access to the same board and cards.
Cards typically have an assignee who is responsible for completing the tasks related to the assigned card. Because Kanban tools are visual, everyone on the team can check the status on any task at any time.
This is why it is preferable to use a personal Kanban tool instead of a physical mean to visualize your workflow. A personal Kanban tool gives you access to your work from any location. For further reading, read the most important benefits of Kanban.
How to Apply a Personal Kanban System to Your Office365/Outlook Email?
These days many people are choosing to use the Kanban method to organize and track their tasks and projects to stay sane and productive.
Users want simple ways to use their email as a Kanban board for Outlook. While the Kanban view isn’t integrated into Outlook by default, there are personal Kanban board tools to incorporate this kind of visualization and organization on top of an Outlook inbox.
Kanban is flexible and versatile. It doesn’t matter what the specific work or project is, Kanban can be used to visualize and organize it.
That makes it a highly useful tool no matter what kinds of activities you need to keep track of.
Since the system simply requires identifying tasks and moving them from “to-do” to “in progress” to “done,” personal Kanban boards can be used to organize and prioritize any complex task or project.
Using an Outlook Kanban tool boosts work and productivity. You can visualize emails and tasks in progress, identify backlogs, and stay organized, all within the familiar structure of Outlook, without ever leaving your email.
How to Apply a Personal Kanban System to Your Gmail Email?
If you’re using personal Kanban boards to visualize your to-do list and track productivity, then you already know how it simplifies and streamlines managing and monitoring tasks.
Kanban boards help you work more efficiently and keep your attention on your tasks, instead of on administering your to-do list.
If you are struggling to keep your days productive and your work organized, it might be time to look into this simple and intuitive system.
Your inbox isn’t theoretically a to-do list, and the many emails you receive are things you have to act on or go back to at a later stage.
Despite labeling, starring, and all the other email tactics you use, it’s not easy staying on top of all those essential tasks mainly when they all are in one long list.
You can use a personal Kanban tool which can be integrated with Gmail and can be treated as a Kanban for Gmail.
Using a Gmail Kanban application speeds work and productivity. You can visualize emails and tasks in progress, identify backlogs, and stay organized, all within the familiar structure of Gmail, without ever leaving your email.
Personal Kanban Board Examples: Which Industries Can Adopt the Kanban Method
Kanban board examples give you a dose of inspiration for building and improving your own board.
Personal Kanban is a system that can be applied to any industry where a workflow visualization could be beneficial for improving productivity and getting more things done.
You’ll often find similarities in how other businesses structure their boards and track their work. But every team has nuances that make it different from other teams and your Kanban board has nuances, different from these examples.
Also, the personal Kanban methodology can be applied to your personal life for managing many significant life events such as planning a wedding, a football tournament, sports events, and many more events that need a visual organization of the tasks that need to be done.
Keep these three tips in mind, no matter if you’re building your first board or you are just looking for ways to improve your process.
· Copy and adapt these board examples wisely
· Start with the basics
· Think outside the box (columns)
6 Kanban Books for Productivity You Have to Read in 2018
Whether you are a Kanban enthusiast, evangelist, or you’re a Kanban expert, it’s always smart to strengthen and freshen your Kanban knowledge by reading recent work of some of the leading influencers in the Kanban industry.
Here you will find a collection of great books on Kanban and Agile process management that cover a variety of subjects, written by prominent and well-known authors. The content of these books is definitely worth a read.
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Learn: How to Implement Your First Kanban Board with Flow-e
A personal Kanban board could be physical or digital. Its role is to transform our work and personal tasks into a visual workflow.
A basic Kanban board has a three-step workflow: To Do, In progress, Done. Kill multitasking and increase the productivity of anything you do.
