The Creativity Project: Kanban Board
The productivity tool I love to hate
I’m back to using my Kanban board. I gave it up for quarter one after falling out of love with it at the end of last year.
So why do I hate it so much and why am I back to using it?
For starters, I’m using an old white board as my kanban board. It’s big and boring. It sits on my floor and leans against my bookcase. This covers an entire section of my books. And I have to use super sticky post it notes on it, not pretty off brand ones (trust me, I tried during Q3 and it was a disaster). This all culminates in my board being ugly and not something I want to use on a regular basis.
The other thing that I don’t like is that it gives me anxiety. The full board of to do post its freaks me out every quarter. There is pressure on me to get things moving as fast as possible.
When I first started using my board years ago, I literally put every goal up on it. Weekly repeating projects, workouts, and full quarter projects all went up on my board. And moving the post its was a small hit of dopamine, but the ones that didn’t move gave me a huge guilt that outweighed the good feelings.
What made me go back to using my kanban board?
Accountability. It is a visual reminder of what I’m working on and where in that project I am. It allows my husband (and YouTube followers) to see at a glance if things are moving and to bug me if something has sat for too long.
I’ve had to learn how to balance my need to have something that keeps me accountable and shows me where I am in any particular project. I had to cut down on what I’ve been tracking. Weekly reoccurring projects no longer make it onto the board because they are already being tracked in my planner.
My board is literally only used to track the writing projects I’m working on. Where I am in edits, drafts, plotting, and typing up the words. And it feels so much better to not have the pressure of having unfinished weekly tasks cluttering up my board.
What productivity tool have you used in the past and are giving a second shot to? Let me know in the comments!
