I am thinking a lot about how to get everything done in an efficient way, and I found some of Randy Ingermansons idea’s and suggestions pretty helpful. Here is more:
This article is reprinted by permission of the author.
Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, āthe Snowflake Guy,ā publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.
I can only encourage you to sign up to his newsletter. Itās always good advice on anything writing- and publishing-related. Enjoy!
Organization: What About Your Low-Priority Tasks?
Last monthĀ in this column, I talked about the value of choosing just a few tasks and projects to focus on at any given moment. Those few things are, by definition, the high-priority things in your life.
But that meansĀ most tasks and projects wonāt be high-priority. How do you make sure you donāt forget any of those lower-priority tasks and projects?
The answer is simple. You can ensure that you never lose track of any task or project if you do two things:
- Put all your tasks and projects in a ātrusted systemā that contains absolutely everything you want to do.
- Schedule time at regular intervals to review all tasks and projects in your ātrusted system.ā
If you followĀ those two simple rules religiously, youāll never forget anything. Everything will be in your trusted system, so it canāt get lost. And youāll regularly review it during your scheduled review times.
All of thisĀ is explained at length in David Allenās classic bookĀ Getting Things Done. Allen suggests using a paper filing system for the trusted system.
My New Trusted System
Iām not a big fanĀ of paper, and could never make it work. For some years, Iāve been using various software tools as my trusted system. Last September, I began experimenting with a new program, and Iāve now been using it consistently for about eight months. Itās the best tool Iāve ever used, and itās helped me get a bit more control of my life. Iāve decided itās about time to tell you about it.
The softwareĀ Iām using is an online tool atĀ KanbanFlow.com. It lets you create one or more āKanban boardsā to keep track of your life.
Whatās Kanban?Ā Itās a project management system that came out of Japan thatās now used by a lot of software developers. It works great for managing teams of programmers.
But it also works greatĀ for managing your life. The idea is that you want to be able to easily visualize all your tasks and projects on something that looks like a whiteboard. So you create a series of columns for holding all your tasks and projects. Think of each column as aĀ To Do List, but the different columns have different priorities, sorted from low to high.
How Kanban Works
The goalĀ is to move tasks and projects ultimately into theĀ DoneĀ column, which is at the right end of the Kanban board.
The things youāre working onĀ right this instant are in theĀ Doing NowĀ column, which is just to the left of theĀ DoneĀ column.
Everything elseĀ is in columns to the left of that. You can have as many columns as you like. I recommend having at least the following set of columns:
- Today
- This Week
- This Month
- This Quarter
- This Year
- Someday/Maybe
Put thingsĀ in theĀ TodayĀ column only if you can reasonably hope to actually do them today.
And likewiseĀ for all the other columns.
Kanban Keeps Things Visual
What I loveĀ about KanbanFlow is that you can easily color-code tasks and projects so you can visualize them better.
I codeĀ most tasks green. (A task is something I can do in one sitting, which might be anywhere from 5 minutes to a couple of hours. For example, writing the next scene in my novel is a task. So is mowing the lawn. So is getting a haircut.)
I codeĀ most projects purple. (A project is a collection of tasks. For example, writing a novel is a project. So is selling a house. Doing the laundry is a simple project with three subtasksāputting the clothes in the washer, moving them to the dryer, and folding them when theyāre dry.)
An appointmentĀ is a special kind of task that has to be done at a certain time because it involves meeting with other people. I code my appointments red, so theyāll stand out on the screen. I also attach times to them, to let me know when theyāre due.
KanbanFlowĀ makes it easy to drag and drop tasks and projects around on the screen. You can put multiple tasks inside a project as checkboxes. Hereās a screendump of a sample Kanban board that I set up using KanbanFlow. (This is not my real life; itās a simplified example board that illustrates the basics.)
The blue blocksĀ are recurring tasks that take up blocks of time every day, such as working at my day job, working on my novel, etc.
Using Kanban To Manage my Life
At the startĀ of every day, I drag a reasonable set of tasks into theĀ TodayĀ column. Usually these come from theĀ This WeekĀ column. Then as the day progresses, I move things out of theĀ TodayĀ column into theĀ Doing NowĀ column, which has a limit of 3 tasks. (This keeps me from trying to multitask. I rarely have more than one task in theĀ Doing Nowcolumn.) When a task is finished, I move it to theĀ DoneĀ column and add another task intoĀ Doing Now.
The goalĀ of each day is to move all the tasks that started out in theĀ TodayĀ column into theĀ Doing NowĀ column and then ultimately into theĀ DoneĀ column.
The goalĀ of each week is to clear out all the tasks that started out in theĀ This Weekcolumn.
The reasonĀ the Kanban board is helpful is that on any given day, I donāt have to look through all the tasks and projects in my entire Kanban board. I just need to look through theĀ This WeekĀ column to find things to work onĀ Today. And at any given minute, if I want to know what to do next, I just have to look through theĀ TodayĀ column.
The Weekly and Monthly Review
Once a week, I review the tasks and projects in theĀ This MonthĀ column and move some of them into theĀ This WeekĀ column.
Once a month, I review the tasks and projects in all the other columns, looking for things that can go into theĀ This MonthĀ orĀ This WeekĀ column.
As time goes by, tasks and projects move from left to right, eventually ending up in theĀ DoneĀ column.
But nothingĀ ever gets lost or forgotten, because itās written down and I review it at least once a month.
KanbanĀ doesnāt make you more efficient. It just gives you peace of mind that you wonāt forget anything, and that youāll always be working on the things that you know are your current highest priority.
š The Bee Writes 