MY METHOD TO ORGANIZE MY LIFE

Finish it!

I realized that I start to do a task but most of the times I do or can't finish it. So I put it on hold. After weeks or months I just realize, that I forget to finish this task, so I try to do it again. How ever so will be my to do list always big and full of undone tasks (I got actually about 1000 undone tasks).

And also I realized that I will almost never reach my goals, what I unintentionally always set, but never define. Means I have some ideas in my brain what I will achieve, but never wrote down as a really goal. Never set up a list of tasks to reach this goal. Like I got the idea to get IPMA certificated. I went to a training, but had no time to finish the exam. Or thought that I build up a small retail. Done some steps in this topic, invested time and money, but never started the shop (since 3 years almost).

So my main target is from now on (and I have to focus on this every day):

IF YOU STARTED A TASK TO DO, FINISH IT ALWAYS!

...or forget and drop the task. If you lost the interest or the situation has been changed.

As I mentioned before I think the best strategy is to use a method and a tool which is easy to understand and everybody can adopt in our family. This would be then:

Agile: Kanban

What does this means?

"Kanban is a Japanese word meaning billboard or signboard."

You can get information from Wikipedia, but I will put here to you a short summary from the method:

"Kanban is a method for managing knowledge work with an emphasis on just-in-time delivery while not overloading the team members. In this approach, the process, from definition of a task to its delivery to the customer, is displayed for participants to see. Team members pull work from a queue."

How it is working then in my life? It is easy (I hope). In my case, product owner and kanban team is the same. My wife and I.

But in more details: 

• The product owner has to define and prioritize the backlog (list of tasks). The most important one should be on the top of the backlog (To Do column)
• A kanban team is only focused on the work that's actively in progress (Doing column).
• Once the team completes a work item (Done column), they pluck the next work item off the top of the backlog
• The product owner is free to re-prioritize work in the backlog without disrupting the team (because any changes outside the current work items don't impact the team).

As long as the product owner keeps the most important work items on top of the backlog, the development team is assured they are delivering maximum value back to the business.

I need a strategy!

How will I realize this in my real life? This will be my strategy:

• I will install a board (a magnetic white board or pin board) to the wall of our lobby in our apartment and in my office. I will put to there some markers and sticky notes (post-it) for the tasks.
• The lobby board will be used for my family and I will use an online tool for my personal board (like for work, new projects, etc.)
• We will set up one or two kanban boards with the columns: To do | Doing | Done
• We have to collect all the tasks and write it up in list what we need to use as the source of all the tasks. Lets call this Icebox.
• In a weekly iteration we need to pick tasks from our Icebox, put them on the boards backlog and prioritize them.

Weekly routine

I will do a weekly reset on my boards:

• Archive all the done items
• Put back every To do and Doing items into the Icebox or put all the Doing to the To do and leave the items on the list for revisit.
• Pick a bunch of items from the Icebox and put it on the Backlog.
• If Items left on the board, do a revisit, which one should stay or which one should go back to the Icebox

Daily routine

• Do a daily stand up meeting at the mornings
• Focus always on the Doing column
• If one item is done, put the sticky notes to the done Column
• Pick a new task from the top of the backlog, and put it onto the Doing column.
• Don't pick too much or over the defined maximum numbers of items from the backlog
• Put or remove new items from Icebox and put it on the backlog (prioritized) during the week if the situation has been changed, or you run out from items. But try to avoid this change on the backlog.

Why offline and not online? Because It is more easy to do like this than use some toll for the work. However maybe I will use as a backup one online tool for this (or only for my personal boards), but it is better to have one board on the wall, and small piece of papers on it rather than to use some tool which could easily hold more than 1000 to do's. You can easily loose control, and you will be over loaded. How can you prioritize 1000 tasks? Also my wife will never really have too much time to check the tasks on the internet because the kids...I don't know. Lets give a try! Uhm...lets do it!

About Daily stand up meetings

What does it mean?

It means that there should be a small meeting/discussion about two questions:

• "What obstacles are impeding my progress?"
• "(looking at the board from right to left) What has progressed?"

Though it may not be practical to limit all discussion to these two questions, the goal is to stick as closely as possible to these questions.

At meeting time should:

nobody disturb the meeting (like kids :) last maximum 15 Minutes long keep the meeting short, so stand up! be hold every day at the same time

Why is it good?

I think the best is in this dailies, that we can summarize what we did yesterday, what should we focus today, and what are the obstacles what we have to get over. Also very good, that we will have some dedicated time where we could talk about our family tasks. But lets see how it works, and I will write down my experiences!

When and how will we do the meeting?

Because I work and my wife goes with the kids to the Kindergarden during the week, walks with our dog and do stuffs at home, I think the best is to do this in the morning before our kids wake up. If it not works, then at the evenings, but I am pretty sure we have to do it at the mornings.

During this sessions, we need to concentrate on the two main questions written above. And then (as we got a really small team), maybe we have to talk about the prioritizing the backlog, pin up some task to the board, as we will probably have no other possibilities. I feel that we will have problems with this prio thing, but I hope it will work. Still we will have time during the day to set the priorities.

Last question

I got one more question in my head, but I think we will have a solution for this also soon. What should we do with the repeatable tasks like washing the dishes, do cleanup, do shopping, get a hair cut, etc. I have to think on it. Maybe we have to have some repeatable task items, or a calendar (on the wall because we have already a google calendar). But I will not, that our system became over administrated. Lets discuss this in a different time, as a new topic.

Sources

• https://www.atlassian.com/agile/kanban
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_board
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-up_meeting
• http://agileleanlife.com/kanban-visualize-workflow/