Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life

We need to control our workload. We need to divide it into manageable chunks and finish what we start. We need a WIP limit.

Visualizing work and limiting WIP neutralizes the cognitive overload brought on by the Zeigarnik Effect, dispelling uncertainty and promoting follow-through.

Tasks whose status escalates into Urgent and Important should be flagged for a retrospective. Personal Kanban wants us to put our rank and file workers in this quadrant and devote our best workers instead to the Important but not Urgent quadrant which, in the long run, can greatly reduce activity in this quadrant. Our heroes don’t belong here. Our

and professional life are not distinct and should not be artificially separated.

“retrospective,” a processing loop that lets you give thought to what you’re doing, why and how you’re doing it, what you do best, and where there’s room for improvement.

Remaining flexible enough to adapt and prioritize on-the-fly is key. Why? We want to do the right thing, right now.

You can create your own formats and value streams. You can prioritize in whatever way makes you most effective. You can conduct different kinds of retrospectives, depending on what’s going on in your life at the moment. You can—and will—change your work strategies often.

As the freeway approaches 100% capacity, it ceases being a freeway. It becomes a parking lot.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions ~ Dalai Lama