Fresh Start on Task Management
I love geeking out about productivity, task managers, and the like. I consume all I can when it comes to these topics; I read books and articles, listen to podcasts, I’ve even attended an official Getting Things Done Level 1 Seminar. However, I’m as fallible as any human and have found myself underwater and overwhelmed in tasks and work more often than not for quite some time. (There is also a touch of imposter syndrome that hits me, too, seeing as I present myself as someone knowledgeable in productivity).
I am also fully aware that the nature of work and task management lends itself to change and adaptation. In fact, on the most recent episode of the Cortex podcast, CGP Grey and Myke Hurley had dueling metaphors for this cycle: Myke went with a more soothing version of the tides coming in and out; Grey, well, forest fires. To Grey’s credit though, there is something to be said about burning a system down to allow it naturally grow and fit into one’s current life.
I’m not burning anything down yet. But I’m definitely reevaluating all elements. . . and making adjustments.
GTD
Getting Things Done (GTD) has been the key piece in my productivity journey. The benefits of capturing all thoughts, projects, inputs, etc. into inboxes (physical inbox, email inbox, whatever), then processing all of these inputs into actionable tasks, deferring them until later, or simply throwing them away are immeasurable to me.
But with all of the capturing and processing can come an overwhelmingly (and oftentimes paralyzingly) long list of projects and tasks. And while the use of contexts (as well as being aware of priority and time/energy available) can help narrow down what to work on, I was finding too many projects were started, but not completed.
Personal Kanban
Personal Kanban — which declares itself to be a productivity pattern, not an edict (a slight dig at GTD?) — has two “real” rules:
- Visualize your work
- Limit your work-in-progress
These two rules really jumped out at me when I was reading about Personal Kanban. One of the touted features of GTD-centric task management apps like Things, OmniFocus, or Todoist is the ability to only surface and show tasks as you need to see them (based on availability or context). And while weekly reviews are helpful in bringing these tasks to attention, I was finding that during the work week, the combination of long lists of projects coupled with hidden tasks was frustrating, crippling even.
A New Tide
I’m not quite ready to abandon Things as my task manager. Perhaps it is a sunk-cost fallacy, but, there are time and energy already committed to the app as far as the capture of tasks/projects. However, I have re-organized the structure of the app to better account for the rules (especially #2) of Personal Kanban.
Things allows me to create “Areas” — basically groups of projects. I’ve created Areas for Half Better, Home Life, and Day Job (prior to this re-org, I had over a dozen Areas for much more specific domains of life). Now, I’m committing to a work-in-progress (WIP) limit of no more than three projects for each Area. All other projects go to each respective Area’s “someday” view (basically a backlog).
Interestingly, as I’m writing this out, I’m realizing that the Someday view in Things perhaps hides projects in a way similar to the frustrating manner I’m trying to avoid. Maybe I’ll create two Areas per, well, meta Area: i.e. — Half Better In Progress and Half Better Backlog.
Partner Perspective
Task management preferences (philosophy, organization, etc.) are very subjective and personal. But that doesn’t mean a partner couldn’t or shouldn’t be included in conversations around task management. After all, getting work done at work and at home in a mindful manner is key to less stress and a balanced life.
Next family business meeting, I’m going to walk Lesley through my new thoughts on a system, especially highlighting the WIP limit. It’ll be important to get Lesley’s support and buy-in on this limit and to be prepared for conversations about priorities.
(I also want to introduce analog Personal Kanban — sticky notes on a wall — to Lesley for organizing and working through Half Better tasks. Stay tuned for more on that experiment!)
