I Tried The Kanban Method For A Month...

I took on a couple of big projects in August, and decided that was the perfect time to try out a project organizing system I've been curious about for a while, the Kanban method. I am by no means an expert - in this video I am going to walk you through my understanding of the system and how my first month went!

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Colorful words may be used. don't be alarmed.

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Cindy Guentert-Baldo
4225 Solano Ave. #601
Napa, CA 94558

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#kanban #kanbanboard #kanbannewbie

[HeartBreathings]

Thank you so much for the link and the shout-out!!! I'm excited the kanban helped you through those projects!!

To deal with all my projects, I limit myself to three major goals and then use a 90 day system to figure out exactly what I'll have time for so I don't overwhelm myself. I use three colors of the smaller post its to manage the board for the entire 90 days and that's really been working for me! Would love to see an update on how you end up using it!

[skaerup]

We actually use a kanban board for our family chores; each family member has their own ‘swim lane’. We do also use different colored labels, though, to avoid tasks ‘accidentally’ being moved to someone else’s lane.

[JeanneErin]

In case no one mentioned: you can normally erase a Sharpie from a whiteboard by just coloring over it with a dry erase marker. Found this video really helpful.

[kriswindley]

Okay! So I have a Kanban I’ve used for blogging and projects that’s super similar. I use tiny, magnetized clipboards to hold the sort of categorized weekly tasks in the Progress section.

So the Blog Post clip board lives in the Progress section always, and holds the planned posts for the month ahead. As I write and publish the posts, I take that post’s post it off the tiny clipboard and move it to the Finished section.

Any other project with a handful of tasks, gets a clipboard in the Progress section too - with the current task on top, and the following ones in order under it.

It helps me to plan out the sequential tasks for a goal, so I don’t get diverted by the fun stuff until it’s time ;)

[sarakeefebooks]

I have been waiting for this video! This is a great explanation of this method. I was curious to see how you used it!


I adore Sarra Cannon, she's amazing. I started watching her for her writing videos, but everything she does is great. I made my first Kanban board this quarter, and I'm loving it. I finished editing a book I'd been sitting on for 6 months, and now I'm on track to finish a novel rough draft by the end of this month. I do what Sarra does and keep track of 3 projects at a time: whatever novel I'm working on, my self-pub stuff (in beginning stages), and a personal goal unrelated to work. I can't wait to see how it works for me during NaNoWriMo season, that'll be a real test of my productivity!

[janelplans]

Ive never heard of this method before and its very interesting. I think it could be VERY helpful for me!! I am someone who gets overwhelmed knowing I have a ton of to-dos or doing a big project. Being able to break it down like this would be great. Thanks for sharing!

[ArtyAntics]

I loved Kanban when I was working, I might do it again for my art projects. I actually worked with programmers so it was a team board and we estimated the effort it took to complete each card aka post it notes. We had different colours for different projects which helped us separate things like building from documentation. Once we did a few weekly cycles we worked out our natural throughput so we only picked from the to do into the progress what we could actually get done and that helped us field off other people’s *ehem* or our perfectionism. We also had a clearly defined minimum viable product for each project. Eg making a YouTube video: film the video, edit it, upload it are required steps. Planning the video, thumbnails, end screens and cards are not MVP as the video can exist without them. There was a method called MoSCoW, Must or Should, Could or Would. I basically only used the first 2 but it was helpful when I couldn’t see the wood from the trees. Lastly we only committed to having on the Kanban what was in the next sprint cycle so our todo box didn’t get blown up. For a paper system like yours you could take your post it notes off the to do and stack them like you did say on the wall next to the board and then only bring the next task in the project onto the board, or as many as you are committed to that day/week. Note that you if you used the MoSCoW method all the Musts need to be done before the Shoulds etc (except where you might think a Should might be easier to do at the same time, totally up to you). Hope there is something helpful in there 😊

[conquestadventure]

HAHA I was going to say "wow your hair looks fantastic on your curly girl hair journey!" and now I'm thinking that's all of the comments you're going to get :P

[birdsandwords]

Interesting. I checked out the other videos you mentioned then grabbed some poster board, washi-ed it up and got out the post it notes. If it works for me I may get a white board but thought I would to a test run with what I have on hand. Thanks for the inspiration.

[rachelrobertson]

Kinda late to the game, but I stumbled across your video tonight and just wanted to say thank you! It was so nice hearing this insight from a kanban newbie, as I’m researching this as a possible method for myself. I, too, heard about it from Heart Breathings — who is absolutely amazing — but haven’t given it a try yet.

So, thank you so much for posting this! It was very helpful! Would LOVE to see an update on this!

[jaimejofreeman]

I just recently heard about this. Thanks for sharing. Love the idea of narrowing the middle section for one row. Sounds like a great idea.

[helenmoorhouse]

I think that if you add too much of your other regular tasks to it, you might be at risk of losing clarity / focus in relation to your projects, and duplicating with your other planners. Maybe revisit your planner existential crisis notes from earlier in the year / last year to see where you think this fits in to your planning system? I know you don't like time boxing because it doesn't work for the fluctuations in how you are feeling, but I think keeping the kanban board for just your key projects, and then allocating time in your EC for "projects" a few times a week (like you did when you were working on your book for example?) might mean you know you have some decent chunks of focused project time each week that you use your kanban to identify what tasks you'll do in those chunks of project time, and then use your ec and bujo to map out your other daily / cyclical stuff. I feel like i could go on and on about this, but i feel like a separation between "deep work" and "daily shit" is helpful in being confident you have both aspects in hand and progressing, but also getting into the right mindset for each type of work.

[jed]

The Kanban concept is used in IT and project management a lot... I never thought of using it in my personal life. Thanks for the tip!

[KitchenPenguin]

I don't so much have projects around the house, except for downsizing, so I use mine for recurring household chores so it isn't just in my brain and the BF can't say he didn't know x needed to be done.

I put the categories on painters tape on the kitchen cabinets above/next to the sink because that is where the day begins (coffee) and ends (dinner cleanup). Items move into the Doing area at the beginning of the day and are moved to Done as it happens or at the end of the day while I stare at the notes while we do dishes. All the recurring Done gets moved back to To-Do on Sunday night for the new week. For things that happen on a certain day of the week, trash and recycling, I put that in the corner of the sticky note and things like "Water Outside Plants" moves back and forth from Done to Doing throughout the week.

[lisaballan]

I use washi tape on my white board as it's easy to pull off and put on in case I need to adjust something like adding a goal or project. (Or if I feel the need to change colors with the seasons.) I also use small post-it notes and have 3 goals on my board. I follow Heart Breathings also and have adapted mine so that work related or business related is on one board with three goals maximum and then a smaller board with a personal goal and home projects. I look at my board the night before when I'm planning out my next day in my planner and I write down the one thing from each goal I have to do next and don't look at the board again until I have completed that task. It helps me not feel so overwhelmed at times with all I have to get done. Look forward to an update on how you adjust your board and how you do with your progress of getting things done this way.

[jenrothke]

And yes, please to more Kanban videos!

[OdoriDances]

I stacked all tasks of a project onto itself. I have one at work for two us to tackle upcoming events.
I loved Sara’s (Heart Breathing) kanban videos and have been evaluating my personal goals to see how to make this for those. Thank you for sharing! Looking forward to updates 😉😉

[lauraflaim]

What if the post it notes are 3 different colors for your 3 areas... Along with being smaller.

[CreatrixTiara]

I have a Kanban style system to keep track of all the ideas I have for projects (though it's laid dormant for a couple of years now, I just refreshed it today!). What I do for projects with a lot of to-dos is to have one post-it note for the whole project, and then when I move it to the In Progress section I attach a larger post-it note to it with a checklist. If some of your tasks are relatively small and can be clumped together, that could be one way of doing it.

[April-vrgr]

This method interests me. I would love to see more videos on the subject.