I have to ask, because I refuse to believe that I am the only one. Who here keeps a personal Kanban board of some description? I have to do a few things this weekend, so this is my board for the weekend. Come on share your boards people… How do you do it?
Be honest, who has a personal Kanban Board
ryan
#2
So, I love personal Kanban. Had one for the past 2-3 years and made great progress in various ways with the actual board and stickies in my home office.
Recently, my professional life shifted and I am much more a nomad Monday-Friday; some days not knowing where I will be spending the next. It basically killed personal Kanban for me. I tried to keep with it in a notebook, but that didn’t work nearly as effectively because the board itself became a pull because it wasn’t always in front of me.
I recently started using the Best Self journal, with positive experiences so far. It required some tweaks to how I spend my mornings and evenings - which is difficult to adapt to. But, so far I am liking my results and have actually worked in some other life best practices along with it like:
- Inbox zero
- Daily praise
- Timebox and reflection
For anyone that packs for 4 days when they are scheduled for an overnight trip like me, you may want to peek at the Best Self
JayH
#3
I have one on my whiteboard at work that I use to track things i’m working on (mainly to control WIP). My “honey do” list every weekend gets posted to the fridge in Kanban format.
I believe @troy has a good story around using Kanban boards with his wife… 
bradstokes
#4
Hahaha, I imagine it might have been the polar opposite to my partner. I was showing her how Jira board I use at work operated. She was soooo upset with me that I hadn’t showed her the system before.
We maintain a couple for various projects and personal stuff now. The one at the top was my weekend board.
philguenet
#5
I use Leankit - it is pretty good. You are on the trial version first and then you may downgrade to the basic version which is free.
Colleen
#6
Love this question @bradstokes. I’m a big fan of Kanban as well but have struggled to use a physical board for the same reasons that @ryan mentioned (life on the road). I took up Bullet Journaling about two years ago and have found that it’s a good fit for me. It forces me to look at any aging work each morning and reprioritize based on what is new. I also like that it’s in essence combining all my backlogs rather than having my mom/work/home/personal lists all over the place. It doesnt limit my WIP however unless I just consider a page “full.” Only downside? If I lose that notebook I’m epically screwed 
asciamanna
#7
I’ve used a personal Kanban board for managing my blog posts. It helped me collect ideas and limit WIP (ensuring I don’t start too many posts without publishing them). Not having my board with me at all times influenced me to switch to Trello but I like it a lot less than the physical board. With the tooling it’s just too easy to create waste. It has become a combination of note taking and Kanban board and I find it less effective at both activities.
marjanvenema
#8
A whole slew of Trello boards. Use many simply as “spark files” to acquiesce the fear of losing a good idea. A couple are actively used to manage my side lines (as in activities outside the day job).
Paul_Elia
#9
I do, and I just recently upgraded! I bought a 4’x6’ magnetic whiteboard a few weeks ago. Due to recurring tasks, I got tired of stickies; that plus I wanted nice pictures of recurring tasks to give it some zing.
I have 2.5"x3.5" photo magnets with my weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual recurring home tasks; I think there might be a few oddball cycles in there somewhere. For events that are more than a month out, they go in an index file with the names of the months on tabs rather than clutter the board. Every month I have a recurring card to reset the monthly parts of the board.
Stickies plus overhead projector style pens that can go on top of the photo holders and be erased later complete the set up. Big picture plus an example card below.
For years I let Microsoft Outlook or my phone bug me to do these sorts of things, but it was no good to get notifications when I wasn’t home and could not do anything about it, for example. I am still playing with the layout, but happy to go manual for this sort of stuff. I don’t always do a daily visit, sometime I skip a few, but for sure I wind down Friday with a plan for the weekend.
tgalloway
#10
Trello is my friend regarding my person Kanban. I’d be lost without it and the Trello app for my iPhone is pretty good so I always have the board with me. I split mine into two board actually (personal and work) as it was getting hard to maintain having both together. I’ve got a few others that use less frequently but at this point if Trello went boom tomorrow I’d be lost.
Paul_Elia
#11
I have Trello, too. I like it for projects my wife and I tackle together. She’s not as much of a fan of Kanan, though, but she’s being a good sport about it. My kids might be easier targets to convert!
anonymous1
#12
Me too, me too! I use trello for my personal kanban boards currently. In the past - when I’ve had situations where I’m on multiple projects and can’t always access a board digitally from client sites for some reason, I’ve used teensy post-it notes inside a notebook page for an on-the-go kanban board, so that I can stay focused wherever I am.
My husband and I also use kanban boards - every time we move, we spin one up. Any time we have a project going, we spin one up for that too. It’s been a really good way for us to collaborate and divvy up tasks and info between us. 
Love this thread! thanks!
kschlabach
#13
At work, I use a Confluence page to keep it in “company tools” but hidden from prying eyes (restricted) as it sometimes contains tasks not for all eyes (political coaching).
At home… I’ve infected my wife (she’s a professional photographer) and we share a bunch of Trello boards for each context (home, personal for each, business clients, business overhead)