If you've ever been on a video call with me, you may have noticed the large whiteboard in my background, flooded with colorful sticky notes. That's my Kanban board, and that's how I keep track of my various projects. Enough people have asked me about this board that I thought I should share in writing how it works! I use this for my writing life, but you can use it to track whatever you want . . .

How It Works

• I divide my board into three columns: TO DO, DOING, and DONE. 

• I put all my various writing life tasks on sticky notes (color-coded by project) in the TO DO column. 

• Then I move sticky notes from TO DO to DOING (no more than five at a time). 

• When I complete a task, it moves to DONE. 

• Then I can bring another task into the DOING column. 

A sticky note should only ever move forward, not in reverse. The whole system has helped me keep track of multiple projects, projects in very different stages, etc.

You may notice that I've given different titles to my TO DO, DOING, and DONE columns. Instead, I call them BEGIN, JOURNEY, and JOY because that little act brings me joy! 

Lastly, in my JOURNEY (DOING) column, I have a section at the end called WAITING because sometimes we need to wait for something (another person to respond, time to pass, etc.) before we can finish a task, but we are not actively working on that project. It's just WAITING. Once it leaves WAITING, I move it back to JOURNEY (DOING) until I complete the task.

A Few Kanban Facts

I first learned about Kanban during a session at the 2019 HippoCamp writing conference. Dayna Bateman and Kevin Behr, two writer engineers (or engineer writers), shared the system. They had me at writer engineer :). You can actually view their slides here.

Kanban has its origins in Toyota lean manufacturing. People have told me that entire plants in many different industries run smoothly because of Kanban.

Sometimes when I share about Kanban, people tell me that this is just like the Trello app. I've never used Trello, but maybe an app might be helpful for you! Dayna and Kevin mention Trello in their slides. (UPDATE: during a writing residency, when I was away from my Kanban board, I used the Trello app! I really liked it as a system you can take with you)

Keeping Your Sticky Notes Stuck: One Final Tip

Typically, we remove sticky notes horizontally from left to right or right to left (the adhesive at the top). Instead turn the sticky note pad so the adhesive is on the left. Vertically remove the sticky note from bottom to top. This drastically reduces curling and helps keep sticky notes stuck! (this tip is courtesy of Dayna and Kevin!)