Personal kanban: visualize your work and limit what is in progress

Personal kanban is a way to manage your own work on a board, with just two rules: visualize your work, and limit your work in progress. You put everything you might do on cards, move them across columns as they progress, and agree with yourself on how many can be in motion at once. The board shows at a glance what you have taken on, what is stuck and what is done.

This guide covers where personal kanban comes from, how the board and the WIP limit work, the anti-patterns its creators warn about, and how to keep a personal kanban in Barside, a free desktop app for Windows, Linux and Mac.

Where personal kanban comes from

Personal kanban was created by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry, of the company Modus Cooperandi. Their book, Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life, was first published in 2011, and personalkanban.com says it received the Shingo Research and Publication Award.

Their definition is short: "Personal Kanban is Kanban adapted for human, knowledge-work and everyday life, built on two simple rules: visualize your work and limit your work-in-progress."

The point is not the board itself. It is what the board makes visible. As personalkanban.com puts it: "To-do lists capture tasks but hide how much is in play, where it gets stuck, and what it costs to start 'just one more thing.'"

The two rules of personal kanban

Rule 1: visualize your work

Make a board with columns for the stages your work goes through, and a card for each thing you might do. When work is on the board, you can see it, talk about it and choose between options, instead of carrying it in your head.

Rule 2: limit your work in progress

Agree how many things can be "in motion" at once, and stick to it. That number is your WIP limit. When Doing is full, you finish something before you start something new. In personalkanban.com's words, WIP limits turn the board "from a wish list into a system".

The basic personal kanban board

The simplest board has three columns:

The name Options matters. It reminds you that you choose what to pull into Doing, and that some options will never be chosen, which is fine.

How to pick a WIP limit

Personalkanban.com suggests "2–3 for individuals, 3–7 for teams, depending on context." Start with 3 if you are unsure. If cards sit in Doing for days and nothing finishes, lower it. If you often wait on others with nothing to do, you may need a column for waiting work rather than a higher limit.

Common personal kanban anti-patterns

Personalkanban.com lists the patterns that make a board stop working:

• Everything in progress, nothing finishing. A board with no real WIP limit is just a to-do list in columns.
• Invisible work. Favors, side projects and small requests never reach the board, so the board says you have capacity when you do not. Put them on cards too.
• Static boards. A board nobody reviews drifts out of date. Look at it regularly.
• Boards only for reporting. A board kept to show status to a manager stops serving the person doing the work.
• Copying a "best practice" board. Someone else's columns fit someone else's work. Start simple and let your board grow from your own.

How to keep a personal kanban in Barside

Barside puts a kanban board inside a note, so your board sits next to the notes that explain it. Boards are saved with your notes, on your computer, with no account.

Set up the board

1. Create a note called My board. Type /board at the start of a line and press Enter, or press the board button in the note toolbar (Insert a kanban board).
2. The board starts with To do, Doing and Done. Open the ⋯ menu on To do, choose Rename, and call it Options.
3. Rename Doing to include your limit, like Doing (max 3). Each column's header shows how many cards it holds, so you can compare the count with the limit at a glance.
4. Pick a Color for each column from the same menu, so the stages are easy to tell apart.
5. Open Note options and choose Pin to the top, so the board note leads its workspace.

Barside does not enforce the WIP limit. It shows the count, and keeping to the limit is your part of the deal, as on a whiteboard.

Add and move cards

• Under Options, press New and type a card. Enter saves it and keeps the box open for the next one, and Shift+Enter starts a new line in the same card.
• Drag a card to Doing when you start it. A line shows where it will land, and Esc while dragging puts it back.
• From the keyboard, select a card and press Alt with the left or right arrow to move it to the next column.
• Each change is its own step for Undo, with Ctrl+Z.

An example board

Say you are a freelance writer. Options holds eight cards: three article pitches, a website update, an invoice run, a course you want to take and two favors for friends. Doing (max 3) holds the article due Friday, the invoice run and one favor. A client emails with an urgent edit. Doing is full, so before you start, you either finish the invoice run or move the favor back to Options. The board makes that trade-off visible instead of letting the edit quietly become a fourth thing in progress. By Friday, Done shows the article, the invoices, the favor and the edit, and you pull the next pitch from Options.

Add columns only when you need them

If work often waits on someone else, press Add column and call it Waiting. A board holds up to 20 columns, but most personal boards need four or five at most. Write what each card is waiting for on the card itself.

Keep the board in view

Pin the board note to your desktop in its own window, or dock it to the edge of your screen as a slim tab. See the desktop app at the edge of your screen.

Review it every week

A board needs a regular look. Add a checklist line such as "Review [[My board" to your weekly review template, and let Barside create the review note every week as a repeating note. During the review, clear out old cards from Done, check that Doing is within its limit, and prune Options you no longer want. A board holds up to 500 cards, so clearing Done keeps it light. See the GTD weekly review for a review you can adapt.

Cards, tasks and due dates

Board cards are text: they have no due date, checkbox or reminder. For work with a hard deadline, also write it as a checklist item in a note and give it a date with + date. It then shows on the task board, which groups every checklist item by when it is due. The kanban board shows flow; the task board shows dates. Many people use both.

A board per project

For a bigger project, give it its own note with its own board, under the project brief. Save a note with your favorite columns as a template with Note options → Save as template, so every new project starts with them. See note templates.

Who personal kanban suits

• People who start more than they finish, since the WIP limit makes that visible.
• Visual thinkers who prefer to see their work rather than read a list.
• Freelancers and makers whose work moves through stages, like drafting, review and delivery.

It suits people less if most of their work is tied to dates and deadlines. Then a dated list, like Getting Things Done with a calendar, may carry more of the load.

Related methods

• Getting Things Done, for capturing and clarifying the options that go on your board.
• The Eisenhower matrix, to decide which options to pull into Doing.
• The GTD weekly review, a weekly rhythm for reviewing your board.
• The Pomodoro Technique, focused intervals for the card you are working on.