"Personal kanban": a life-changing time-management system that explodes the myth of multitasking

3 IDEAS

1.98K reads

"Personal kanban": a life-changing time-management system that explodes the myth of multitasking

qz.com

Keep reading for FREE

The Personal Kanban

It's a system to save us from our endless to-do lists, which can turn any job into a lifeless chore.

It works on two principles:

Visualize your work.
Limit your total number of "works in progress."

Setting Up

Create three columns on a board where you can use magnets or post-it notes. Label the columns: Options, Doing, and Done.
Write your individual tasks down on separate cards. Post all of these cards in the "Options" column.
From that column, choose no more than three to move into the middle "Doing" column. This is your work in progress.
When a task is complete, move it into the "Done" column, and choose a new option to pull into "Doing."

The Zeigarnik effect

Starting but not completing too many projects puts people at risk of the Zeigarnik effect, which states that people are better at remembering unfinished tasks than completed ones.