Using a kanban board for solo work

What matters here

• Columns make work in progress visible
• Moving cards feels like progress regardless of actual work
• Too many columns create stale piles
• Personal work rarely moves through fixed stages
• Fewer columns and a date field do more

The part that carries over

The useful idea from kanban is limiting work in progress. If your doing column has nine cards, you are not doing nine things. That insight works alone just as well as it does in a team.

The part that does not

Fixed stage columns assume a repeatable process. Personal work is lumpy: some tasks have five steps, some have one, and the columns describe a pipeline that your week does not follow. You end up moving cards for their own sake.

A simpler shape

Use three columns: now, next, later. Put a due date on anything that matters and let the dates do the ordering. The board stays a visual aid instead of a second job.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

• Brainstorming on a wall of sticky notesNotes on a wall are the fastest way to get ideas out of several heads. They are a poor archive and an even worse plan.
• Why does my task list feel overwhelming?A list feels heavy when it holds more than a week of work and shows all of it at once. The size is a backlog problem, the feeling is a display problem.
• Why do people stop using note apps?People stop for three reasons: capture got slower, the notes were never read, and the app asked for maintenance it did not return.