With all the different productivity methods and management that are being used by people to organize and plan school or work, and life events–it isn’t easy to find one that truly is effective and easy to maintain.

However, today we’ll talk about a productivity method called the Personal Kanban, which is one of the more popular strategies to get things done effectively.

Personal Kanban is an easy way of systematizing your work load. It is structured to make you see the broad view of everything in general, but also separating them into different tasks based on your priorities.

This concept was thought of by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry, both productivity experts who saw the difficulty of people when faced with tons of work.

And to do a Personal Kanban, there are three steps to follow. First is to outline your workflow, then to visualize your work, and finally, to limit your work in progress.

1. Outline your workflow

Classify what kind of flow will work best for you. Most people start and divide their Personal Kanban into 3 areas:

• To Do
• Doing, and;
• Done

Although some also use “Things To Do”, “To Do Next”, “Currently Doing”, and “Done”. We recommend that you just start with the basic three and tweak accordingly as you use it.

Most prefer a corkboard or whiteboard, and use post-its. But you can also use a pen and paper or notebook. Or download Personal Kanban apps on your laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

2. Visualize your workload

Visualizing your work basically means listing down all the tasks that you need to do. Furthermore, you should analyze and figure out which must be done first, and which of them can be done later.

After that, you can now begin by placing your tasks on your Personal Kanban. Usually, all the tasks start at the first column: “To Do” and then you choose which among them you’ll move to the “Doing” column.

Consequentially, after you’ve finished the task, move that item to the “Done” column. This is important because it will give you a sense of accomplishment and motivate you to do more. It is an emotional reward.

3. Limit your work in progress

Limit your work in progress means that you must never do more than a set number of tasks all at once. For the Personal Kanban, putting only a maximum of three tasks in the “Doing” column is recommended, less is better.

This is the reason why you need to visualize your workflow, so you can divide your work and easily prioritize the ones that must be done first, and then next.

Doing so will help you become more efficient, systematic, and avoid getting overwhelmed by everything that you need to do. Remember that you will be able to do your work effectively and efficiently if you focus on one task at a time. Avoid multitasking.

And that’s it!

The Personal Kanban is a simple method that has helped a lot of people manage their time and get things done. Go ahead and try it, and possibly also apply its principles to your business or organization when doing a team project.

This article was written by monicasnchz. You can try her article writing service HERE.