I started by entering a timeline of the terms of the US Presidents and have been filling it in with historical events and notes as my interests wander. I want to do something similar with family history.
Sure - my only question is why not using something richer than a ToDo/Doing/Done board. Checkout Story Maps or Impact Maps, or other thing with richer display of value.
It feels a bit like: I see people playing hockey with sticks they put together themselves. I ask why not use an aluminium stick?
This is a good way to think about it. I’m organizing my work by doing weekly reviews and weekly plans where I look at every project and make sure they’re all in good shape. I then time block plan my days (when it makes sense) to make sure I spend big chunks of time on the most important projects. One reason I was considering Kanban is because MacSparky has written about it and I know he time blocks his day.
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I refresh my Kanban boards weekly. I archive the existing sets of boards in a folder, re-date the folder, and clear all projects that are completed across all boards. Here is a snapshot of my boards at this point for this week.
I project the Status Shelf view in Curio to my desktop via GeekTool, and I get a view of the Status Shelf on my iPad by storing the html file in my iCloud folder.
I have more information on all this and a link to download projects with the example boards at the Zengobi (Curio) forums as further interest arises.
FWIW, I have also used Trello to collaborate on projects with my graduate students. Trello served very nicely for example to mentor a PhD student through the myriad stages in completing a dissertation. The ability to link with documents Google Drive and the ability to put checklists on cards were both great features to have.
Hope this all is giving you a better sense where Kanban may and will not improve what you need to be more productive.
–
JJW
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I find them helpful as a visual indicator of how tasks are stacking up, from “due right this minute” to “do this sometime in the next year”. Being able to see roughly what tasks have what status helps keep me focused and makes sure I don’t drop the ball on anything. Also, the density of data is quite valuable. In Trello, the layout is basically lots of “cards” where you can immediately see name, status, due date, tags, attachments, and # of checklist items. I’ve not seen many non-Kanban-board products that manage to squeeze so much information about so many tasks into a fairly small window.
Personally, I think you should give them a shot even if they don’t seem like they’re for you; I wasn’t really interested them at first but now wouldn’t go back after using them for a while.
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I find this a very prescriptive definition. A Kanban process is perhaps everything you describe, but a Kanban board is just a way of visualising items.
Markdown was a tool to create web content in a narrow scope of the author’s devising. I think we can agree it busted out of that box a while ago and people are making good use of it for whatever works for them.
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@zkarj I will frame it differently. I’m telling you where these tools come from, their intended purpose and why they’re valuable. I know about Kanban because I was part of the Agile community when it was born. (Literally I was part of a group of lightening talks, when someone did one on “Naked Planning” - i.e. Agile with the orthodoxy of Sprint Planning. I thought was strange at the time).
You may yet gain value out of “Kanban” like wall, I’m just struggling to see what it is. I also note that various podcasters have commented (Grey of Cortex and David - I think), that they struggle to gain value from their Kanban Board.
I might guess that exploring Story Maps - see: Story Map Examples and Templates for examples is going to be a richer vein for some:
Or my own business example:
Maybe you will find value in the use of Kanban Board, I’m genuinely curious as to what value it is.
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Definitely looks cool and I can see how some may find these more useful than Kanban boards — however, for my own case, they seem altogether too complex. The thing about a kanban-style board is that it fits with what I do naturally: segment tasks out into piles based on what stage the task is at, and move them from state to state when I work on them. It’s a simple system that fits with my natural behaviour. Sure, you could do this without a kanban-style board, but it’s easier to visually process as a board, and provides greater data density as I mentioned in my previous post.
It’s definitely not for everyone, but the value it adds is enough for some people.
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I guess I read something into your tone that probably wasn’t there. I just find it quite normal that people will pick up a tool and use it for something other than its intended purpose.
Another (counter?) example - GTD. There are so many takes on this now that regularly spark turf wars, yet the single, consistent sentiment that always crops up in such discussions… if it works for you, then great.
There are GTD sticklers, there will be Kanban sticklers. There will also be people who like the look of something and make it theirs. In fact, sometimes I take that literally, as I will sometimes choose to use an app because of how it looks. A decent Kanban board certainly looks better than most task lists. Does that mean it has intrinsic, measurable value to me? 
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That’s what I’m using Obsidian Kanban boards for. Tracking the things I’m working on, the things that are next etc for the multiple versions of my LambTracker and AnimalTrakker software.
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I think I’d find it most useful on projects where I only have intermittent periods to work on them.
So in a sense, I would use it with a team – a team of current/past me and future me. As time goes on, and as I work o more projects and juggle more projects, I find I have to document more – both what I’ve already done and what I’m intending to do – or I waste a lot of time recreating my thought processes.
I think Kanban-like hug and feature tracking could help.
Is that your experience?
@zkarj One last thought. Part of the problem I have is with the misuse of labels.
In my training work, I encounter many people who have heard of Scrum. They know one thing about Scrum - it has a daily event Daily Scrum. They think of it as boring event.
I pushback against misconceptions and misunderstandings. By the same token, if you said you planned to practice: “not scrum” loosely inspired by Scrum, I would cheer. I would also ask you document your success or failure so we can learn.
Please try “not Kanban”, document the result I will laud you.
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I use a Trello Kanban board exclusively with my collaborators at work. It is very visual for teams to keep an eye on what’s happening. My team very quickly adopted it as it mimicked their old board with post-its 
I thought of using todoist with shared lists but decided to separate my task manager from team collaboration (who wants the stress of someone else filling your task lists?). This way if I have an urgent task, I decide which Trello cards I send to my task manager. I also made a Shortcut to quickly browse my Trello lists and choose cards to send in bulk to Todoist with backlinks for quick access, this way if I ever change task managers I can just switch the last action with Things or Reminders for example.
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