Category Archives: Future

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Can Kanban Improve Your Work and Unlock GTD®?

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© Bellemedia | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

© Bellemedia | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

People who are categorized as “knowledge workers” often struggle with managing all of the information that comes their way on a daily basis and with getting everything done that needs to be done. My wife and I are both knowledge workers, and for years we have been mutually searching for a way of working that allows us to stay on track, manage a flood of information, keep our promises, get things done, and be great at everything we do. Modest goals, right?

Getting Things Done

In 2009 we discovered David Allen‘s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. His book has had so much impact that many people (including us) simply refer to his system as GTD®. We highly recommend the book and his method of organizing everything in your life. We are committed to his method of putting all tasks in writing and keeping them in context-specific lists. For example:

Errands

  • Buy groceries
  • Mail tax return at post office
  • Make deposit

At Computer

  • Finish RISE proposal
  • Request meeting with James for the 22nd
  • Schedule web conference for new project

You define your own contexts and add everything in your mind that you need to do in those contexts. My list is very large and evolves daily. If I trusted my brain to remember all of this, I would surely fail.

After understanding the purpose and power of GTD®, one of the first questions most people have is: “What software tool should I use to implement this system?” The beauty of GTD® is that there is no one tool that David recommends for everyone. He wants you to understand the system and then find the tools that work best for you. Finding that perfect mix of tools has been a challenge for us. Initially I used an iPhone tool (and related website) called Toodledo. This tool allowed me to create unlimited contexts and unlimited tasks. It also allowed me to include due dates. However, it was still not a natural part of my work day. I did not find myself using it effortlessly the way Zamfir uses the pan flute. My tasks were all “there,” but I wasn’t doing much with them.

Lean Manufacturing

I now believe that what I was missing to properly implement GTD® was right under my nose the whole time. In my day job I help companies and individuals manufacture their products. This career gives me the opportunity to be in many different types of factories (I wrote about my affection for factories here). Great factories have nearly all adopted Lean Manufacturing practices that were first developed in Japan. Among the many concepts used in Lean are:

  • Kaizen (“good change” – continuous improvement)
  • Muda (“wastefulness” – waste elimination)
  • Poka-yoke (“fool-proofing”), and
  • Kanban (“sign-board” – an inventory pull system)

Please hang in here with me. The payoff will be worth it. All of these Lean concepts are powerful, but I want to focus on one of them: Kanban.

Kanban

A kanban pull system is the way many factories are organized today for Just-In-Time (JIT) production. For a brief explanation for what a kanban system looks like, please check out this video:

So the kanban system relates to the inventory of parts and sub-assemblies that flow through a factory to completed product and customer order fulfillment. What does that have to do with knowledge workers or GTD®? Well, think of your capacity as a worker as you would think of a factory. In a sense you are your own factory with a set capacity to do work each day. You have a lot of people making a lot of demands on your time. You have work to do, promises to keep, and miles to go before you sleep (Robert Frost reference). Not to mention the fact that you have to attend that piano recital tonight, pick up a gallon of milk at the grocery store, and call to check on Aunt Edna’s gall bladder surgery. You only have so much time in the day. How will you balance your workload so as to not break promises or create big bottlenecks?

Let me introduce another book. My wife is currently reading a book titled Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life by Jim Benson & Tonianne DeMaria Barry. Think about the title for a moment – Personal Kanban. Remember, you are your own factory. You have only so much work that can flow through your factory today. You need a personal kanban system to effectively manage the inventory of tasks you need to do, those you are currently doing, those that are waiting for something or someone else, those that have been completed, and the entire backlog of all things that need to be done. I have not read the book yet, but as she and I have discussed it, it has become clear to me that implementing my own personal kanban is the secret to unlocking GTD®. It is in harmony with David Allen’s concepts. It is very possible that David even has the same idea just stated differently, but the concept of me being my own factory and having my own kanban has been powerful to me.

However, the question of tool still lingers. How do I implement my personal kanban? My wife has started using a physical white board with sticky notes for each task that are placed in one of several columns that reflect her workflow bins. This is the way kanbans are still used in some factories while others have gone to electronic kanban systems. I have found a software tool that is working beautifully for me.

Workflowy

I must give credit to John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing for sharing a terrific tool called Workflowy. John’s article provides a nice overview of the capabilities of Workflowy. The Workflowy site also has a good video introduction. My special recipe, though, is the combination of GTD®, Personal Kanban, and Workflowy. With the three of these merged together I am starting to use these tools like our buddy Zamfir and his pan flute. It feels natural to me.

Let me show you the way I have set up Workflowy bins to give me unprecedented productivity in my personal factory:

  • READY [Work Waiting to Be Processed – Tasks That Need to be Completed First]
  • TODAY [Work I Need to do Today]
  • DOING [Work In Progress – Limit 3]
  • WAITING FOR [The Pen – Things I’m Relying on Others or Time to be Able to Complete – Additional Actions Beyond My Control]
  • DONE [Completed Work]
  • BACKLOG [Work Yet to Do]
    • Personal (By context)
    • Work (By context)

Not only can I access my free account directly on Workflowy.com, I also have the Workflowy app on my iPhone. Each task listed in my personal kanban bins on Worklowy can be easily moved from one bin to another by dragging. It is very powerful to be able to look at the task I am currently DOING, to drag a completed task to DONE, and to pull a new task from TODAY or READY down into DOING. I hope you will at least give it a try by setting up your free Workflowy account as I have above. To really fine tune it all, I recommend you read the two books cited above. For me, implementing my own Personal Kanban on Workflowy helps me with Getting Things Done.

Forward Story

To me there is an obvious connection between all of this and Forward Story. The future I am working toward depends in large part on how I do my daily activities. This is true whether I am a student, an employee, a business owner, or a stay-at-home parent. The more effectively my personal factory runs, the more positive possibilities will show up in my future.

What tools and/or practices do you use in your daily life to help you keep on track and be more effective in your work?

 

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Trajectory

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Think of your life as a dart on a certain trajectory. Are you likely to hit your target?

When you think of your current life trajectory you are immediately forced into a glimpse of the future. While none of us can truly glimpse the future, I believe we all walk around with some sense of how our lives are going and whether we are “on track” or not. Of course, “on track” for you is likely quite different from “on track” for me. You cannot define my track, and I cannot define yours. This relates to ambition. We all get to have our own. The important thing is to make an honest assessment of where you currently are, what you are currently thinking and doing, and where you want to go. Are you likely to get there or not in the right time with your current bearings?

The powerful thing about the human experience is that in a free society you possess the power to alter your course. Unlike a dart that has been hurled, you are capable of course correcting from this point forward. For you that course correction might be new education, different friends, a different job, a different career path, or a new relationship. Whatever it is, you can do it if it really matters to you. It comes back to what “on track” means and how much you desire that outcome.

It may be that your honest assessment of your current trajectory reveals that you are indeed on track. If so, your challenge will simply be patience and endurance. Make that a priority by keeping your eyes on the prize.

Is your current trajectory likely to lead to your desired outcome?

If so, endure.

If not, make a move.

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Practicing What I Preach

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I made a commitment several years ago to revise and update my personal Forward Story at the beginning of each year. Experience teaches me that in order for my Forward Story to be a powerful tool for living and action, I need to regularly update it. This is why each of my Forward Stories has an “as of” date:

Mark’s Forward Story as of January 1, 2013

These two little words remind me that the story contained in the following pages represents my vision for the future as it existed at a set point in time. To me a new year, even though it is just a function of human calendars, is like standing on a mountain and looking out over a long view. It is a great place and time from which to do some visionary work.

Given that we are in the first month of a new year, I am putting the finishing touches on my revised Forward Story. I wanted to take a brief break from the revision to answer the question:

Why does my Forward Story need to be updated regularly?

  • My plans for the future change as I grow older. I no longer see the world or my future the same way I did when I was younger — even one year younger. To be honest about the future I now envision as a more mature person, I have to take a fresh look at what I hope for now given where I am. I sometimes look at my older Forward Stories from years ago and marvel that that young man valued different things than this older man now values.
  • My circumstances change from time-to-time requiring a fresh look. One of my previous revisions in the area of health expressed the desire to reach a certain weight by this point in time and to maintain that weight into the future. The truth is that I have now lost below that original target weight. Now that my vantage point has changed with regard to that goal, I am now revising my goal lower because I am convinced I can get even healthier. The same is true for family and career domains as well as health. Sometimes the revision goes the other way. Perhaps I have not reached a goal, and I revise my desire with regard to that goal. I may restate it, eliminate it, or attack it a different way.

An amazing exercise is to go back and review previous Forward Stories. Over time they tell quite a “back story” about my life. As I read the hopes, dreams, and plans of my younger self, I see what authors and storytellers call a “character arc.” I can see the way my life has changed from inside of my thinking in those earlier timeframes. I highly recommend it.

I will admit that doing the annual revision can be a bit of a tedious task, but I have developed some helpful tools that make the task a bit more fun and effective. I will be sharing those tools in future posts.

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Doomsday Is Here?

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As I write this post, we are two days from the Winter Solstice 2012, which is on Friday, December 21, 2012. This is the day each year when we in the northern hemisphere have the shortest daylight and longest darkness. For many years now I have had this particular Winter Solstice in my calendar under the heading:

End of The World (Mayan Doomsday Prophecy)

You are either reading this before or after 12/21/12. If before, you may laugh off the prophecy or you may be really expecting the world to end. If after, you will know that either the prophecy was false or the interpreters of the prophecy were mistaken. This idea of the end of the world intrigues me with regard to writing and living my Forward Story. The fact is that on Friday life will end for many people on earth. Even if it doesn’t end for all of us, many will meet their own end as a result of natural causes or the risks of life as mortal beings.

Any Forward Story that does not take into account the fact that life here is not forever will be lacking. It will not lead to true happiness because it is not based on the truth. My encouragement to us all is to live each day understanding how precious and short life is and to be sure our plans and activities properly value those people and causes that we truly care about. These need to all be included in our plans and stories.

See you in 2013.

Unless I don’t.

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Mind-Mapping the Nearer Term – Adding Age 25

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In our last article our 18 year-old John completed his mind map for the time-frame 12 years down the road when he is 30 years old. He put in writing in his mind map his various dreams and goals across three areas – family, career, and personal. However, there is a large gap between where John is right now at 18 and where he wants to be when he is 30. Now comes a crucial step for John. He must answer the question, “How do I get there from here?”

When we introduced John in this series we identified the time-frames that he will plan for. The exact time-frames are flexible and can be defined as John desires. The most important thing is that these time windows make sense to the person creating the mind map – in this case John. Here is the mind map we laid out for John: (all images will enlarge when clicked)

With his age 30 mind-map completed, the next time-frame for John is the next seven years. At the end of that window he will be 25 years old. This period is exactly five years before the age 30 period he has already completed. With each new time period, John has to review the plans he has already written to make sure that what he plans in this new time-frame truly enables him to accomplish what he has already written in his longer time-frames. For example:

  • Family. John wants to be living near his parents when he is 30 in order to be able to take care of them. The likelihood of that happening will depend in large part on John’s decisions by age 25. He has to make sure that this new time-frame takes location into account.
  • Career. John said that when he is 30 he will be in his 7th year of work as an engineer. In order for this to happen, John needs to have already been an engineer for two years by the time he is 25. If he were now to write that by age 25 he wants to start his first job as an engineer, there is no way he will be in his 7th year of work when he is 30. This is why he must review what he has already written.
  • Personal. Since John wants to be under 190 pounds by the time he is 30, he will want to make sure he is setting a realistic goal for his age 25 time-frame with regard to his weight and health. If he does not pay attention to his weight and instead gains weight in his early to mid twenties, John may have weight problem to deal with when he is 30.

In this way John reviews what is already planned in longer time-frames and begins to write a coherent plan for the shorter time-frames. It is important to note that John’s already completed age 30 plan is not chiseled in stone. In working on an earlier time-frame he may discover that something he has written for age 30 cannot be accomplished by that time. OR he may determine that he has been too conservative and that he can really accomplish more in that more distant period. In either case he will need to go back to age 30 and make changes so that his plan has a realistic shot of success. In this way, the entire process is really an iterative process. That is, it will likely take several iterations (or repetitions) to develop a coherent plan.

Back to Age 25

After reviewing his age 30 mind map, John will now begin writing for age 25 across all three realms. Here is the blank template for age 25 with the familiar fields to guide John in his planning.

Since John has already completed his more distant time-frame, he can more easily step back in time and create his goals:

Family

  • Family Status: Mom & Dad 62, Steve 27, Jane 24, Kate 20
  • If we are not already living near Mom & Dad, we will look for career opportunities to move closer.
  • Steve may have children by this time, and it is important to me to be a good uncle to my nieces and nephews. This is true even if we do not live near one another.
  • I will have contributed my love and help to Jane and will have a healthy, supportive relationship with her as an older brother. I will maintain healthy boundaries.
  • I will continue my strong relationship with Kate and assist her in whatever ways she needs me.
  • I may be an uncle to Jane and/or Kate’s children at this point. As with Steve’s, I will invest in these nieces and nephews and be a wonderful uncle to them.
  • Robin and I will be celebrating our third anniversary.
  • I will support her in her career, life, and interests.
  • I will spend quality time with her and work seriously on making our marriage great. I will invest in us.
  • We may have children by this time. I will take fatherhood seriously and will look out for the well-being of them all.

In reviewing his age 30 map, John notices that he failed to say anything about his in-laws in what he wrote about family. He address this now in the new time-frame by writing:

  • I will make it easy for Robin and the kids to spend time with her parents.
  • I will look for ways to help Robin’s parents.

Also, now that John has identified this oversight from the age 30 plan, he will go back to that age 30 map and add his thinking about his in-laws.

Career

  • I will be in my 2nd year of work as an engineer.
  • I will establish a reputation as a person with a strong work ethic.
  • I will cultivate relationships with engineers I admire in order to learn from them and grow my network.
  • I will look for and participate in continuing education opportunities.
  • I will earn at least $60,000 per year.
  • We will practice wise budgeting and will pay off all student loan debt.

Personal

Body/Health

  • I will keep my weight under 190 pounds.
  • I will play tennis and walk regularly.
  • I will eat a healthy diet, and continually educate myself about the latest in nutritional science.
  • I will get annual physicals from my doctor.

Fun

  • I will take guitar lessons and review the fundamentals of music.
  • I will play in at least one charity golf tournaments each year for fun and to support good causes.
  • I will hunt annually with my Dad and brother.

The World

  • I will explore various charities and volunteer my time to determine the place I am most passionate about serving.
  • I will explore the mentoring a young person through Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
  • I will financially support humanitarian relief efforts through world-class charities.
  • I will vote in local, state, and national elections as an exercise of my civic duty and of patriotic gratitude.

Spiritual

  • I will continue to learn and explore my own spiritual nature and the nature of God.
  • I will focus on my spiritual journey with my wife and grow along with her.
  • I will explore and identify a good group of people/church to belong to and to do spiritual work with.
  • I will strive to be consistent in my religious beliefs and allow them to guide my actions in work and personal life.

Here is all of this information in the mind map for age 25:

When both the age 25 and age 30 map are included, here is John’s map. Remember, this image will enlarge:

Now that we have gone through two different time-frames for John we can begin to understand the process for doing a complete mind map. I think you will agree that it is actually hard work. We have not even completed John’s plan yet for his two closest time-frames. One thing that will emerge as we look to the closer time-frames is that the specific goals will become more like tasks as he begins to realize actions he will need to take to make his longer vision a reality. In our next article we will examine how the closest time-frames will drive John’s actions.

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Getting Personal About Forward Story Through Mind Maps

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This article is part of a series that began with “Using Mind Maps to Develop Your Forward Story.” We have used fictional 18 year-old John as an example and have started building his Forward Story by using the creative tool of mind mapping. In the last article we continued looking at John in twelve years when he will be thirty, and we focused on his career realm. He defined his career ambitions in light of his commitment to his family. As a reminder of where John is so far with his age thirty mind map, here is the map with those two realms completed. (All images will enlarge when clicked).

John has set some excellent goals for when he is thirty. The statements contained in each branch feel right to John. He gets excited thinking about it. The old saying goes: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” John wants to be a mature adult, but he also wants to have some fun. He does not want to be a dull boy. He wants to enjoy life and to live in a meaningful way. So the next realm he will think about is what we will call the Personal realm. We include in this realm body, health, fun, the world, and spirituality.

Body/Health

John knows that thirty is still young, but he wants to take care of his health so he will be able to handle all of the other goals he has already chosen for himself. If he gains a lot of weight, develops diabetes, and suffers from heart disease (like his father has), he may not be able to take care of his parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, or his wife. He  has seen this happen to other friends and family members, so he is determined to make his health a priority.  John writes the following statements:

  • I will keep my weight under 190 pounds.
  • I will exercise at least three times per week.
  • I will eat a healthy diet, and continually educate myself about the latest in nutritional science.
  • I will get annual physicals from my doctor.

For fun John really likes playing guitar. He is currently a novice, but would like to be much better in twelve years. He knows he can do it, so writes the following about guitar and other “fun” activities:

  • I will be able to play guitar for my family and friends without embarrassing myself.
  • I will play in three charity golf tournaments each year for fun and to support good causes.
  • I will hunt annually with my Dad and brother.

Also in this personal realm, John needs to think about the larger world in which he lives. He is aware of people in other places and of his responsibility as a citizen of his own country. He writes:

  • I will regularly volunteer my time to help with our local food pantry.
  • I will mentor a young person through Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
  • I will financially support humanitarian relief efforts through world-class charities.
  • I will vote in local, state, and national elections as an exercise of my civic duty and of patriotic gratitude.

Finally, John will address spirituality. He is not quite certain where his spiritual life will take him, and he has a lot of questions. John considers himself a seeker after spiritual truth, so he has some expectations that by age thirty he may have found some answers to his questions. He contents himself with the following for now:

  • I will have an understanding of my own spiritual nature and the nature of God.
  • I will continue my spiritual journey with my wife and grow along with her.
  • I will find a good group of people/church to belong to and to do spiritual work with.
  • I will strive to be consistent in my religious beliefs and allow them to guide my actions in work and personal life.

Putting all of this together into his mind map, here is what John’s personal realm looks like at age thirty:

John’s final mind map for age thirty is pretty busy. Here is what it looks like all put together:

This branch of John’s map represents a lot of hard work in thinking, visualizing, and writing. As good as this is, this is what John envisions his life looking like in twelve years. In order for this to be more than a fairly tale, he has a lot more work to do to bridge the gap between now and then. So, as a reminder, the thirty year branch is only a small part of John’s overall mind map. Here is a visual reminder of what is left to define:

In our next article we will look at the way John’s closer timeframes relate to this age thirty branch.

How do you think John’s completed branch will affect his thinking about the next few years of his life? How is it likely to impact his behavior?