3 ms·

Kanban has really helped me keep the Monday sense of urgency all week long. I feel very focused on Monday because people tend to schedule meetings, things get k

Kanban has really helped me keep the Monday sense of urgency all week long. I feel very focused on Monday because people tend to schedule meetings, things get kicked off, there are clear next steps; you're usually not bringing the previous week's baggage into the new week. By Wednesday more things are in-flight, blocked, ramping up, ramping down; there's more mental baggage; it's harder to have mental clarity around what needs to be done and what I should prioritize. Putting those things into kanban helps me get all of that juggling out of my head and onto a board where I don't have to be mentally burdened by it. It becomes easier to focus on what's at the top of my queue -- if something gets blocked I have a place to park it, and if I'm blocking someone I've got an appropriately-prioritized place in the backlog to park it until I can help. It also helps me limit the amount of "Work In Progress" so I can turn my full focus onto whatever my top priority is at that moment.

noobrunner 6y ago
Thanks for the suggestion. Do you use it just for work stuff or even personal ? Sorry, I have about kanban but not very familiar.
- eastbayjake 6y ago
  I do, but I keep separate personal and professional boards because they're prioritized very differently. An example from this fall: I needed a flu shot but I had recently moved to a new city and didn't have a doctor yet. The nebulous thought process in your head would normally go something like "I need a flu shot... but I need a doctor... but not sure what my insurance lets me choose... what's my insurance login credentials..." and you're suddenly five levels deep and way off your original goal. It's hard to stay motivated and focused when a bunch of interdependent tasks mingle together in your mind. Kanban helped me get all of that out of my head into a clear set of linked tasks: - I need to reset my login. - I need to login and pick a primary care doctor. - I need to call and make an appointment. This has two benefits: (1) A series of hours-long tasks get broken down into smaller chunks that I can knock out when I have 15-30 minutes each. (2) My end goal ("Get a flu shot") stays parked in my blocked column where I don't have to worry about it -- I can stay focused on the things that are immediately within my power to do. And that's super liberating! It feels good to knock out a todo list. This process keeps you focused on knocking things out and removes the mental overhead of having to juggle all these little things that you can't really do anything about immediately -- it's being tracked somewhere so you can write it down, keep working on what's most in your control, and come back to that item when it's actionable.
- majewsky 6y ago
  Not OP, but I also have a personal kanban at work to get stuff out of my head. The team has a JIRA, but my personal kanban is explicitly separate and private, so that I don't have to redact what goes on there. Every little idea for a code refactoring or a library update can go in there without making a huge mess for others. The JIRA tickets assigned to me also go in there, and I use checklists to break down tickets into individual steps. (The kanban is in a private GitHub repo, so the checklists are those found in GitHub-flavored Markdown.) If I ever find myself utterly stuck or blocked on the current task, I can pull up some small quick-win task from the backlog in my kanban to get my mind unstuck. Plus I'm always able to say that I accomplished at least something by the end of the day, even if 80% was spent hunting some elusive bug without producing anything to show for it.
  - noobrunner 6y ago
    Thanks. I will try this

noobrunner 6y ago

Thanks for the suggestion. Do you use it just for work stuff or even personal ? Sorry, I have about kanban but not very familiar.

eastbayjake 6y ago
I do, but I keep separate personal and professional boards because they're prioritized very differently. An example from this fall: I needed a flu shot but I had recently moved to a new city and didn't have a doctor yet. The nebulous thought process in your head would normally go something like "I need a flu shot... but I need a doctor... but not sure what my insurance lets me choose... what's my insurance login credentials..." and you're suddenly five levels deep and way off your original goal. It's hard to stay motivated and focused when a bunch of interdependent tasks mingle together in your mind. Kanban helped me get all of that out of my head into a clear set of linked tasks: - I need to reset my login. - I need to login and pick a primary care doctor. - I need to call and make an appointment. This has two benefits: (1) A series of hours-long tasks get broken down into smaller chunks that I can knock out when I have 15-30 minutes each. (2) My end goal ("Get a flu shot") stays parked in my blocked column where I don't have to worry about it -- I can stay focused on the things that are immediately within my power to do. And that's super liberating! It feels good to knock out a todo list. This process keeps you focused on knocking things out and removes the mental overhead of having to juggle all these little things that you can't really do anything about immediately -- it's being tracked somewhere so you can write it down, keep working on what's most in your control, and come back to that item when it's actionable.
majewsky 6y ago
Not OP, but I also have a personal kanban at work to get stuff out of my head. The team has a JIRA, but my personal kanban is explicitly separate and private, so that I don't have to redact what goes on there. Every little idea for a code refactoring or a library update can go in there without making a huge mess for others. The JIRA tickets assigned to me also go in there, and I use checklists to break down tickets into individual steps. (The kanban is in a private GitHub repo, so the checklists are those found in GitHub-flavored Markdown.) If I ever find myself utterly stuck or blocked on the current task, I can pull up some small quick-win task from the backlog in my kanban to get my mind unstuck. Plus I'm always able to say that I accomplished at least something by the end of the day, even if 80% was spent hunting some elusive bug without producing anything to show for it.
- noobrunner 6y ago
  Thanks. I will try this