Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life

To do lists... Getting Things Done... Time Management... Usually they're all focused on complex methodologies or the amount of things you can accomplish in a given timeframe (usually a day). But instead of being busy, what if you focused on how effective you were in getting the necessary things done? Heck... what if it was also pretty simple? That's what you get in the book Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry. To me, this was a book that "clicked" immediately and helped me see where I was going wrong in terms of frantically trying to do and be everything to everybody.Contents: Foreword - The Agony of Crisis Management; Introduction - Personal Kanban - 100% New Age Free; The Basics of Personal Kanban; Building Your First Personal Kanban; My Time Management is in League with the Freeway; Nature Flows; Components of a Quality Life; Finding Our Priorities; Strive for Improvement; Endgame; Appendix A - Personal Kanban Design Patterns; Appendix B - Personal Kanban and Social MediaThe basics of Personal Kanban are very simple. You need to be able to place work in context with who you are and what you need to accomplish. Next, limits need to be placed on the WIP (Work In Progress) so that you can be effective in what you're doing. Finally, you look at what you've done and learn how you might be able to do it more effectively next time. That's really about it. The tools to implement Personal Kanban are even more basic... sticky notes and a whiteboard/wall with three columns for Ready, WIP, and Done. As you choose items from your Backlog (all those sticky notes with tasks and to do's written on them) that are ready to be worked based on your overall context, you move them into the Ready column. As you start to work on them, they move into the WIP column. And then to see and feel that sense of completion, the sticky note moves into the Done column. The goal isn't to have 100 items in Ready or WIP all the time. If that's the case, you haven't gained anything. Instead, the items that are Ready are ones that make sense to start based on the current situation. Even more important, the WIP column should only have a small number of items actually being worked on (try starting with three) at any given time. If you have 15 items "in process", you're not managing anything. You're just reacting to whatever is squeaking the loudest. By understanding your own personal workflow limits, you'll know what you can and can't accomplish in a truly effective manner. Again, it's not how productive or busy you are... it's how effective you are in what you choose to do.The authors have an easy-going flow between them when it comes to writing style. Having also followed them on Twitter, I can see where that comes from. They enjoy what they do, and it shows through in this book. By the time I was a third of the way through, I was already planning out my own implementation. The fact that I could start immediately and improve it as I went along was right in line with what kanban is all about... incremental improvements to become more effective and cut down on wasted effort.I'd recommend Personal Kanban to anyone who is looking to get their work and/or personal life under control. The concepts work equally well in both environments, and you don't have to commit to an all-or-nothing methodology that costs major dollars to get started "properly". It's hard to argue against sticky notes. :) This will also be a book that I'll revisit on a periodic basis to look for new angles and slants on how I'm doing within the framework. Overall, this is great material with the potential to make major differences in your life.Disclosure:Obtained From: AmazonPayment: Purchase

I have seen it all. From the primitive todo to the philistine Covey to digital GTD to the nothing-there ZTD, I am confident saying that there is nothing I have wasted more of my time on than studying how not to waste more of my time. I have active accounts with AppoloHQ, Nirvana, Producteev, HiTask, RTM, TeamLab, PlanBox and a gazillion other task management websites. I approach each of these methodologies and implementations with a cynical eye. I do not inherently trust any "system" and quickly pshaw them right out of the box. But I hang on. I hang on to the hope that as my brain begins to drop more information than it picks up, I will eventually find something that will work.The prerequisites are simple:1. No part of this process should take more than 10 minutes to implement2. It needs to be visual3. It needs to be visible!4. I should never be in a position where I say "If only I had an internet connection" or "If only I had my laptop" or "If only my Circa Rhodia pad come unlined."5. At the "end of the day," I need to be able to report on and measure my performance. We are all accountable for what we produce. My goals are directly tied to what I can accomplish.6. It's got to FEEL good. Metrics aside, if it is ugly, cumbersome or "kludgy," it will never be a tool for me. I seek beauty through simplicity.7. It can't be binary. Use it or not, there has to be room for a transition.8. It should not be mutually exclusive to any other system. If I want to implement Next Actions or Covey's big rocks/little rocks, or a universal capture tool (ie Evernote), then nothing should stop me from doing that.Perhaps those prerequisites were not so simple after all as it seems that no one was able to meet those criteria. Then came a breath of fresh air within the pages of Personal "Kanban - Mapping Work | Navigating Life." What Tonianne and Jim have done is create the most unnecessary book ever. Because with no more than a few words, anyone can begin using Personal Kanban within a few minutes. Of course, far from an unnecessary book, this book expands on the methodology with insight into how PK evolved from Lean manufacturing principles. It proceeds to discuss the human side of why things don't get done which is the ultimate Achilles' heel for many people...certainly my Achilles' heel.What PK has managed to do for me is bypass the normal procrastination techniques, missing organizational DNA and the inability to hold greater than two items in my head simultaneously. PK is becoming my "staging area." It is the first thing I do in the morning as I make conscious decisions about what must happen by the end of the day. It feels as natural as what all of us do when we scribble a note on a post-it and stick it to our monitor. But instead of a collage of post-its, PK takes simplicity and mashes it with effectiveness to create a disarmingly simple process.Tonianne and Jim have done all this in a well-written book with simple examples but it is NOT an oversimplification. It is real, it is beautiful, it is doable and it is waiting for you. Pick up the book today and stay tuned for wonderful to happen.UPDATE: One year later and I still find myself returning to PK as my method of "Mapping my work." I still investigate other methods and am forced to follow another approach at work, but find myself craving and returning to PK. I Have since reread the book 2 more times and am still picking up new information. I have recommended it to friends and coworkers. When all around me seems to spin out of control, it is so refreshing to turn around in my seat and see my personal Kanban board waiting for me. I have a "customized" whiteboard at work where I've used artist's tape to create my lanes and I bought my own colorful sticky notes, sized appropriately for my writing style. Each color represents a separate project. If I do nothing else but LIMIT MY WORK IN PROGRESS, I already begin to breathe easier. The grace of this system cannot be overstated.

Personal Kanban applies Lean principles to individual and team work. The two rules of personal Kanban are:1. Visualise Your Work2. Limit Your Work-In-ProgressJim Benson founded Modus Cooperandi with Corey Ladas (Scrumban author) and David Anderson (Kanban author) where they established Kanban for software development. Jim and Corey created the personal Kanban board to visualise and manage their team’s work.In addition to the technique's history and principles, there is guidance on building your first personal Kanban:- Step One: Get your stuff ready- Step Two: Establish your value stream- Step Three: Establish your backlog- Step Four: Establish your WIP limit- Step Five: Begin to pull- Step Six: ReflectThis book includes practical advice on creating and evolving personal Kanban boards and is realistic in recognising that every board is context driven and thus different.This book could be a lot shorter and overall has been eclipsed by David Anderson’s work but is still a valuable read.

For me, this book is gives a balanced introduction to personal Kanban both in terms of the underlying principles and real-world practical examples.A key point that I've taken from this book is that *it's the principles that matter most*, and that there is no turn-key / silver bullet solution or design that is likely to fit all cases.My view is that I'd rather understand the principles and develop my own Kanban board(s) for the different contexts in which I would use one.I started reading this book wanting someone to "just show me" how to manage my numerous projects. I've come away more comfortable in the idea that over time, I can evolve a system that suits my needs.I would not say this is the only book I need to read on the subject, but it's certainly got me off to an enthusiastic start. Of course, I am still left with many questions, but the book does point to an online community for further support and does not make unrealistic claims.I find some of the images a little unclear at times. I'm reading from the electronic book, so I don't know how this compares with the paper format.

Simple, clearly explained tools that Demystifyies the practices of managing yourself, your work, your life and or your business to get more of what you want while reducing, elinmination of self induced guilt, fear and stress and replacing them with clarity, space to think, operate, enjoy the process of gwtting theceight things done at the right timeDispells many myths that have become entrenched in the workplace and our lives as defacto truths.Great book explaining a very useful practice (PK) and how to apply it.

This is a book about clarity and better performance. Written in accessible style, it aims to show the often misunderstood links between productivity, efficiency and effectiveness, and demonstrates a simple powerful method to manage your daily work flow or bigger projects. A great approach to deal with work overload at work and at home. I highly recommend the book for entrepreneurs, consultants, ambitious corporate managers and working parents.

I came across this book from the appendix of Project Phoenix (another book I would highly recommend). The book provides a system for managing work by visualising the backlog and limiting the "Work in Progress". Those are the two basic rules. The rest of the book explains the reasoning and how to apply this to real life. I found the system easy to use and was invaluable in getting on top of both personal and work tasks. I'm still in the early weeks of using this and don't have any real criticisms of either the book (very easy to read) or the system. This book is a must if you are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work on your plate and haven't been able to find a way to manage it all.