The Kanban Method Is the Best Way to Track Progress on Work (and Personal) Projects

If you’ve ever heard the word “kanban,” you probably remember it, since it is inarguably fun to say. You likely heard it tossed around by someone who works in a corporate office, as it's extremely popular in that setting. “Kanban,” it turns out, is more than a fun word or something practiced by that friend whose job makes no sense to you. It’s an effective system for scheduling tasks in a highly productive way—and it can be used by anybody, not just people who also use corporate jargon about how they'll "put a pin in that" and "circle back."

Don't be intimidated. While it's a little involved, it's ultimately just a visual method for determining what you need to do, what your team needs to do, and what your organization needs to do to reach goals. It can get pretty weedy, but you can totally do it yourself on a smaller scale to maximize your own workflow and productivity.

What is kanban all about?

Kanban was developed by an industrial engineer at Toyota. The word itself translates from Japanese to mean “signboard” or “billboard” and a lot of kanban fans use regular old whiteboards to display their kanban boards.

The idea is that to get things done, you have to know where you’re at in a project at any given time: You have to know what order things need to be done in, what has and hasn't been completed, what you need to do each of those, and when each needs to be finished before the next can begin or the project is ultimately complete. On your kanban board, you’ll have three columns: One is for work that hasn’t been started, one is for work that is in progress, and one is for work that is complete. You can label these “to-do,” “doing,” and “done.”

When you’re using this system, all tasks start out on the left side of the board and migrate across it, giving you a visual representation of where everything is. In addition to the little confidence boost you get when you see tasks in the “done” column, this can help you see how long certain processes take you. Consider writing the date of each shift from column to column whenever you move something into any of the three, as well as writing each task's due date next to it.

How to make a kanban board

You have a few options when you’re trying to kanban: You can make a super-simple Excel sheet with the project name at the top and three columns for to-do, doing, and done. Leave yourself room for notes about holdups, special requirements, or anything else pertinent to the competition of a given task. You can also use pre-made kanban software from productivity companies like Asana and Trello, which allow you to add notes, files, and other important information, plus sync with your team so everyone is on the same page.

Typically, people use whiteboards for this and write their tasks on sticky notes, making them easy to move from column to column. Like a thermometer chart, this is displayed somewhere in the office and you can move the sticky notes that correspond to your responsibilities as you go through your workflow. If you’re just doing your own project, not a team one, you can use a small whiteboard and keep it at your desk.

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