Personal Kanban in Action!
Sometimes everything comes together. I am currently reading Personal Kanban. I had a work-from-home day today, and I had a million small tasks that needed to get done before the kids got home from school and destroyed my quiet space -- documents to write, appointments to make, meetings to attend, and a few household chores (since the one downside of working from home is that I don't get much exercise, throwing a load of laundry in every once in a while at least means I got up and went downstairs).
It felt like a lot. Even if I remembered all of it, how was I going to get all of that done?!
I followed the recommendation in the book and wrote everything out on sticky notes. Some things, like the meetings, had to be done at a particular time. Calling to make appointments was better not attempted during lunch hour. I wanted to get my documents out for review as early in the day as possible so people had time to look at them. A few minutes on Duolingo would make for a nice afternoon break. And so forth and so on, until I had a rough outline of how the day might look in my "To Do" column - flexible, of course, because they're only sticky notes.
Then I picked one thing. The docs I had to work on were clearly the highest priority for the day, so I selected one of those and put it in the "Doing" column. And then I sat down and did it. With that done, I considered the time window before my first meeting, and picked a task that would fit into it, so I wouldn't have to interrupt myself. This went on all day. Tasks were selected based on a combination of factors like how much time did I have? how much energy? was anyone else affected by when I got it finished?
I never had more than two things in "Doing" at once, and this mountain of small tasks flowed across my board all day. Stuff I have been putting off for months now rests in a pile of finished sticky notes. Side benefit? At no point was I clicking listlessly around the Internet, paralyzed by the sheer number of things I had to do.
Whether this approach would work for me on a day to day basis, I don't know, but it certainly did the job today. Out of 24 this morning, I have four sticky notes left on my wall right now. One of those is for making dinner, and the other three are household things that can wait. So not only did I get it all done, I got it done without exhausting myself or wasting any of the day. Time to make dinner and bask in the accomplishment!
It felt like a lot. Even if I remembered all of it, how was I going to get all of that done?!
I followed the recommendation in the book and wrote everything out on sticky notes. Some things, like the meetings, had to be done at a particular time. Calling to make appointments was better not attempted during lunch hour. I wanted to get my documents out for review as early in the day as possible so people had time to look at them. A few minutes on Duolingo would make for a nice afternoon break. And so forth and so on, until I had a rough outline of how the day might look in my "To Do" column - flexible, of course, because they're only sticky notes.
Then I picked one thing. The docs I had to work on were clearly the highest priority for the day, so I selected one of those and put it in the "Doing" column. And then I sat down and did it. With that done, I considered the time window before my first meeting, and picked a task that would fit into it, so I wouldn't have to interrupt myself. This went on all day. Tasks were selected based on a combination of factors like how much time did I have? how much energy? was anyone else affected by when I got it finished?
I never had more than two things in "Doing" at once, and this mountain of small tasks flowed across my board all day. Stuff I have been putting off for months now rests in a pile of finished sticky notes. Side benefit? At no point was I clicking listlessly around the Internet, paralyzed by the sheer number of things I had to do.
Whether this approach would work for me on a day to day basis, I don't know, but it certainly did the job today. Out of 24 this morning, I have four sticky notes left on my wall right now. One of those is for making dinner, and the other three are household things that can wait. So not only did I get it all done, I got it done without exhausting myself or wasting any of the day. Time to make dinner and bask in the accomplishment!
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