Thread: Kanban style!
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I have been using OF for "Personal Kanban" for several months now. While I have been using GTD and OF for years (and even before OF), I had two shortcomings in my system. One was the growing issue (like many others) that the concept of contexts was not very meaningful to me. With my laptop, iPad, iPhone, and the internet, most of my traditional contexts had all melded into a "just about anywhere" context.

The second shortcoming of my GTD/OF system was in "getting stuff out of my mind and into my system" the nagging thoughts of what I should do next, as well as what tasks and projects were becoming more (or less) important or urgent. I had tried all sorts of perspectives, flags, durations, etc., and nothing quite captured my thoughts correctly - as well as being quick and easy to revise when needed.

Then I found out about Personal Kanban - especially as espoused by Jim Benson on his Personal Kanban website. I have been using it and developing my version of it for several months and my system is now working very well for me. I tried several other Kanban/Agile apps for both iOS and Mac, but I ended up right back with OF as the tool that had the needed functionality for me.

When I started to set up my PK system in OF, I couldn't decide whether to use perspectives or contexts. I thought perspectives would work better, so I tried them first. But there were not enough filters or differentiators for what I wanted to do. So I then tried contexts - and the results were exactly what I needed.

This is my current set-up, which has worked well for me for about 3 months now without change. (Disclaimer: I agree fully with Jim Benson's advice that the optimum PK system will be different for different users and different situations - just like OF.) I use these contexts, listed in this order in the context sidebar:
WIP WAITING (3 max)
WIP (3 max)
1ST PRIORITY (5 max) (1 personal)
2ND PRIORITY (8 max) (2 personal)
READY TO WORK
BACKLOG/NOT READY
SCHEDULED

First, by listing them in this order, I can click on the Context icon in the toolbar and get my tasks in the order I want to see them - working and next-in-line tasks at the top down to backlog and not ready at the bottom. I can easily switch contexts to move tasks up or down as I get things done or as my mental priorities are changing. I no longer worry about remembering what to do next, because I can easily change it when I think about it - either on my iMac or my iPad. It just works! The view bar settings I use are remaining, context, due, remaining, any, any.

I created a DONE context, but I found that the DONE perspective I had created earlier was more to my liking. The view bar settings for this perspective are completed, due, completed, any, any. I get a continuing list of completed items in the order completed and can quickly see how I am doing on a given day or over the past week.

One deviation I made was to put all my recurring tasks in the SCHEDULED context. I tried moving them through the other contexts, but most of the time I didn't need to plus I then had to move the next instance back to the start. So I just leave them in SCHEDULED and use the standard DUE context to keep track of them.

The two PRIORITY contexts are an advanced (?) concept I found out about for PK. I use them as strong guidelines, but not rigid rules. The intended process is that when I finish a task I first pull the next desired task from the 1ST PRIORITY context into WIP, then pull the next most important task from 2ND PRIORITY into 1ST, and finally pull the next READY task on my mind into 2ND. Sometimes I do that in the moment; other times I wait until I get some time to think about it or during my daily review. But this process gives me a chance to reconsider all of the tasks and rearrange them if my thoughts have changed. Most importantly, my current thoughts are captured and I can forget about them.

Finally, the "max" and "personal" numbers are my limits for each of the contexts. This continually reminds me to limit my selections and not let any of those contexts get too large and unwieldy.

I don't post very often, so I can ramble on some. If you are interested in this concept, be sure to check out the Personal Kanban website and check out Benson's book on the subject. I got the ebook version on Amazon for $9.99.