This personal kanban could just save your life.

This is an extremely simple method of personal organization based on concepts just as simple.

Along with many other advantages it will help you to:

• Combat Procrastination
• Reduce general anxiety levels
• Increase visibility

Used in work (or family) teams a Kanban can also help to improve collaboration.

To make your personal kanban

You can get everything you need for around $ 50:

• Corkboard (1.5 ‘X 2’) – $ 29.99
• Push Pins – $ 1.49
• Bamboo 2-Tone Business Card Holder – $ 2.99
• Notes (3” x 3“) – $ 12.50
• 1 Sheet of white paper

I chose products from Staples (prices may not be the same), but you can use whichever products you prefer, provided that:

• The total area of the corkboard does not exceed 1.5′ x 2′. This is important – we will see why later.
• The business card holder must be able to contain up to 30 notes or more.

Assembly is simple.

1. Take a sheet of white paper and cut two strips along the length of about 0.3 inches. Place them vertically, equally spaced, on the corkboard.
2. Although optional, you can add a heading to each of the three sections you have just created (you can use what is left of the white paper for this). The sections are: TO DO; IN PROGRESS and DONE.
3. Finally, paste the business card holder at the bottom of the third section.

Once assembled, your personal kanban should look like this:

Implementation

The central element of your personal kanban is the backlog. The backlog is the list of everything there is to do. It is constantly evolving and to be effective, you must trust it.

Collection

Take the notes and begin to list all the tasks that are going through your head. Use one note per task. Do not worry if you forget something, one of the best things about this tool is that you can add things later to get them in the process. For more information on the collection process, refer to the description of GTD.  Fans of GTD will see how you need to have a kanban for each “location context”.

The way you describe your work is essential. The principle of “next action” should be used whenever possible.

For example if you need to call your telephone company to cancel your subscription, don’t write “cancel subscription”, but “Call Phone Company to cancel the subscription.”

The difference between these two descriptions is obvious. The first version describes your goal, while the second invites you to action. This technique is particularly effective against procrastination. Your mind is less likely to find avoidance strategies.

Prioritization

Once you have all your tasks on notes, you must prioritize them. Organize your tasks in order of importance. The strategy is simple: one task is always more important than another. When you set priorities, think long term. An important task that will become tomorrow’s urgent task should be completed before it becomes urgent. Having urgent tasks always creates more anxiety.

Planning

You must “plan” a maximum of five tasks on your corkboard. In other words, you can’t have more than 5 notes in total on the board. To add a new note, you must remove one that is in the “Done” section, provided of course that it is “Done”.

Ideally, you choose the five most important tasks of your backlog. But it may happen that you decide to group tasks for practical reasons such as economies of scale. If you need to do some odd jobs in the garden, it might be more advantageous to plan to do them together.

Execution

When you decide to start a task, you take the note and put it in “In Progress”. This indicates that you really will do the job. If for any reason you decide to put off the job without having begun it, replace the note in the first column.

Here is a very important rule: Never have more than 2 notes in “IN PROGRESS“.
This stops you from starting to do several things at once without completing any of them; one of the root symptoms of procrastination. This simple rule prevents you from having to waste more time choosing between tasks and means that you can advance.

You can browse your backlog regularly (every 2 to 3 days for example), and update and then re-prioritize if necessary.  You add task notes to the “To Do” section as you take them from “Done.”

You can add to the backlog but you should only ever take a task out of the backlog if its completion would no longer provide you with the intended value.

This process is perpetual. That is to say that there is no end.  We will always still have things to do, that is “situation normal”. If you can accept this fact, it will really help you to reduce any feelings of stress.

How does it work?

The problem that all methods of improving productivity face is the need to fight procrastination. Procrastination fuels anxiety.

When you procrastinate, your mind seeks avoidance strategies and your energy goes into implementing them rather than the tasks. Having only a few tasks that are permanently visible allows your mind to unlock faster. This phenomenon is greatly amplified by the power of the “next action” that calls for action and not for more reflexion which just feeds your toxic thoughts.

Procrastination often happens because you are discouraged by the feeling of having too much to do. For this reason, the size of the board only allows you to displays a limited number of tasks.

How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time!

Having a list, or backlog, (and being able to review and update it) gives you peace of mind.  When there are too many unknowns your thoughts often go in all directions in search of potential threats rather than focussing on what needs to be done.

The kanban is more effective than the standard task list, because a long task list, although it helps you to see all the tasks clearly, sometimes generates as much anxiety as it removes.

Seeing a big task list can really discourage you so you must make your task list accessible but not visible. You can do this really simply with the personal kanban. Place the notes in the business card holder. Your list will instantly seem smaller than it is. The first note in the stack is the most important and therefore it is most likely where you need to start.

The personal Kanban reassures you.  Your tasks are visible but, thanks to the contrast between the notes tucked away in the business card box and those displayed on the board, the size of the backlog is not advertised. Your attention is directed naturally to what matters most at that moment i.e. the 5 tasks on your board.

Also, having a real, physical board which involves you in real action promotes a direct link between your brain and managing your tasks. Taking a task and moving it across your board creates a concrete sense of accomplishment: much stronger than when you click on a checkbox in software.

Another thing that typically causes anxiety is the fear of forgetting something.  The availability of the backlog, easily accessible and convenient, removes this fear. Having the backlog (and regularly updating it) means you can relax.

Finally, the prioritization of the most important tasks allows those which are the least important to fall back to the bottom of the list. You lose less time dealing with trivial things and you are in control of how much time you give to those tasks.