Kan-ban-ban-nanas

I love making lists. Especially to do lists. Of course, often the only thing that got done on my to do list was make to do list, so there’s a problem of efficacy. But that has never stopped me from making lists, usually daily ones.

But a while back, I learned about kanban. I learned about it from Jason Rehmus, while listening to Systematic.

On a very basic level, a kanban is just a to do list mashed up with a flow chart that gets thrown up on a wall. Pretty simple. There are books on kanban, but it seems like the sort of idea that depends on simplicity to work and therefore doesn’t require a book. Anyway.

This is my kanban:

It doesn’t look super inspiring in a photo. But it’s kinda awesome. It has really helped me organize my writing projects and get some stuff to done. Here’s how:

My kanban has five columns: Backlog, Doing, w/ Amanda, On Sub, and Done. I could probably throw a few more in there, but I’m keeping it simple for now. Every single writing project on the board is a Post-It note. They all look the same (no matter what the project is).

You can guess how it works. Each post-it note starts life on the lefthand side the board, in the Backlog Column. This is the “ideas” space, and the unformed clay bit of the process. These post-its all represent unfinished drafts, stuff that’s stalled, or ideas that I know I want to pick up eventually, but can’t focus on until I clear some other post-its off the board.

When I decide to work on a specific project, it goes into Doing. Doing is deliberately broad. It often means actual writing (as in getting something to a complete first draft). But it can mean research, editing, rewriting, or getting beta reader feedback. It’s the column for whatever needs to be done by me. If I don’t work on these post-its, nothing moves forward. So I work, because I love moving those little post-its rightward.

And the next rightward column is “w/ Amanda”. Not everyone will have a kanban column called “w/ Amanda” because not everyone has an Amanda Valentine. But if you’re a writer, you should. She’s my editor, and she’s awesome (she tweets here). Every post-it sits in this column at least once (often twice), while she edits my stuff. When she sends it back, it goes back to Doing (and perhaps also back to w/ Amanda), until all issues are resolved. 

Once projects get Amanda-ed and fixed up, they go into one of the next two columns. Some go into “On Sub”, if I’ve submitted them to a writing market of some type. The On Sub column is like a big bucket of churn-y water. I make a list (of course) of several potential markets for each project. When I get a rejection from the one on the top, I immediately submit the project to the next one down the list...until some fool accepts it. If that happens, the post-it gets moved to the Done column.

Done doesn’t mean “Gone forever and ever.” It just means that someone else is dealing with it, and I don’t have to babysit the thing anymore. Creatively, it’s out of my head. Yay!

Not everything goes to On Sub. Some post-its represent projects that will be published by one of my publishers. Since it already has a home, it skips On Sub and moves directly to Done...which means “I’m done with it”. The publisher gets to deal with it now. Muwhahahahaha.

And that’s kanban. Having this up as a big, analog chart that requires my physical manipulation has been so helpful to my daily planning. I immediately see how things are weighted, how much I’ve got on my Doing plate, and if there are bottlenecks that need attention. It tells me at a glance what I can do each day.

If you deal with similar issues as writer or other indie creative type, I recommend trying out the kanban method. It’s not magic, but it might be what you need.