School is back, and my schedule is busier then ever! I’m sure everyone is feeling a little bit of this chaos with getting back into the swing of things, having student back on campus, and starting classes. With this chaos everyone has their own way of organization to make sure they can remember everything. Actually, many people use personal kanbans and aren’t even aware. A personal kanban is a very versatile productivity system that has basically only two rules, visualize your work and limit your work in progress. Personal kanbans can be made in many different way to organize many different aspect of your life.
Personally, I use my personal kanban to keep track of events that I have and tasks that need to get done. During the school year, I have classes, work, homeowner/study time, and multiple extra curricular that I need to plan out to make sure I get to everything on time and prepared. My personal kanban helps me do that by allowing me to see all that information in one spot and mark things complete when I have accomplished them. Many others use personal kanbans for tasks such as work meetings or projects, home tasks or chores, and homework completion. Some also use them to keep track of all of these things at once.
While there are many different ways to use a personal kanban, there are also many different ways to make a personal kanban. It could be electronically, in a book, on a white board, or maybe even just a piece of paper. I used to use a laminated A3 piece of paper, however I found that I didn’t look at it as often as I needed to. I switched to google calendar and have found great success with that. This way I was able to color code my events, add tasks that I could mark complete, and the best part it was basically always available on my phone. While google calendar worked for me, different platforms work for different people, electronic or not.
Personal kanbans are a life-saver for me and I think they could be for you too! Next time you feel over whelmed and don’t know where to start, try making this visual management system to help you figure out where you are with everything. Also, if you would like help or more information always feel free to stop by the Office of Continuous Improvement and we would be happy to give you a hand. This tool might just be the right step to turn your hectic year into a breeze.
