The Dumbest Possible Kanban That Could Work
I have a fixation with personal Kanban systems, where I think that if I find the right one, I’ll be able to limit work-in-process, get things through the bottlenecked pipeline (me) faster, and have a pile of Done stuff to show for all of it at the end of the week. We’re not allowed to just download whatever we want at work, and the list of Kanban-enabled tools we’re clear to use is limited. Seems like all of them have some fatal flaw anyway, and I had to admit to myself it was a bad idea to introduce another standalone tool on top of the blank daily page in my notebook, the weekly Markdown file of projects and their tasks, and the enterprise calendar with its task reminder system. I ended up making a super-dumb, high-level vertical Kanban at the top of the weekly Markdown project/task tracker. I’m in that file all day anyway, so it’s one less place to go. It looks like:
# Week of 2024-02-26
## TODO
- something bigger than a task but smaller than a project
- that thing I promised my manager I'd do this week
- that thing I promised to train a coworker on
- training I need to schedule
## DOING
- testing some new function in QA
## DONE
- one unit of meaningful work I finished yesterday
- drafted document for new process
Sadly, there is some duplication between some items in the sort-of Kanban and the projects listed below, and there’s no tagging or filtering on any of these tasks, but it’s the only way I can work. I have to have non-smart lists that are anchored to a spot on the page (or in the file).
## Project A
- [ ] write up test plan
- [ ] test code in QA
- [ ] tell developer I'm done
## Project B
- [x] write up process for that new web property we inherited
- [ ] train coworker on it
## Project C
- [x] figure out what training looks good for 2024
- [ ] schedule the training
- [ ] tell manager I'm doneMy brain needs the tiny little bit of focus afforded by that “DOING” header in the Kanban at the top.