hoto by Sebastian Pandelache on Unsplash | Commercial use allowed Introduction: The Relevance of Personal Kanban in Remote Work The rise of remote work has become a prevalent trend, especially with recent global events. As more individuals embrace this flexible work arrangement, it is crucial to address the challenges it presents, such as maintaining work-life balance and managing stress. This article explores the effectiveness of Personal Kanban in mitigating these challenges and improving productivity in remote work environments. Remote work offers various benefits, including flexibility an ..read more

Even though I have been using Personal Kanban for a number of years, even though I am fully aware that I have a limited amount of time to do stuff each day, even though I know overplanning each day is exactly what I am not supposed to be doing. I do that… pretty much every day. And, like most people who keep a backlog or a ToDo list of some kind, I carry stuff from one day to the next. One of the reasons I bailed on GTD and switched to Personal Kanban was that I found I was spending so much time each day just changing due dates in Things for all my unfinished work. BRING THE SHAME So now I hav ..read more

The “Focus” I wanted When I started using Personal Kanban what I was looking for was a system to help me get more things done. I wanted something to focus my time and energy so I could DO MORE THINGS and squeeze more productivity out of every single minute. We’re all only on this planet for a short period of time… I felt like my job was to get as many things done as I possibly could.   When I started, I asked a colleague of mine to act as my coach. What I was looking for was someone I could trust to hold up the mirror when need be and someone who be willing to call me out on stuff when I ..read more

Ready for Presale! After years in the making, I’m proud to announce the newest book The Collaboration Equation is currently in pre-order and fully ready for a September 2022 release ..read more

Note: This article originally appeared on Modus Institute’s blog. Reaching a sustainable work-life balance is tricky. We’ve all struggled with productivity at some point. Everybody deals with the expectations of colleagues, family, friends, demands, obligations, and much more.  Often, we find ourselves overwhelmed by professional and personal obligations because we don’t know how to properly juggle them. One main reason is the struggle to visualize tasks and wrap our heads around just what needs to get done. Alongside visualization, prioritization is another difficult activity for the bra ..read more

Personal Kanban tracks the work of people and the relationships required to get good, quality, professional work done. We work with people to get work done. We should be learning as we go forward, but we tend to give in to the pressures of productivity without every improving how we work. We get stuck in "task mode" as most of our tasks become re-work or work that will not satisfy the customer. It can be different. This video provides visualization for the individual level, the collaboration level, and the project level ..read more

Your done column isn't powerful unless it is actually used. Right now, "Done" for most people is an end-state. No learning, no reflection, no improvement. Done DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE FINISHED! You need to learn from things that went well, things that went okay(ish), and things that were horrible. There are different mechanisms to utilize for your DONE “column”. There are many ways to trigger learning, this video provides four of them. As always, check out Modus Institute for the deep dives on visualizing and triggering learning ..read more

Prioritization is something we all feel we could use more of. But in the end, prioritization is an acknowledgement that we lack clarity in our work and expectations. This PK Powerup provides four quick ways to better prioritize your work. Note: We also have two, very deep courses on prioritization on Modus Institute ..read more

Modus Institute videos about dealing with Covid are free. A Personal Response to Covid-19 from Jim ~ Hey everyone, this blog post is going to be more like a personal letter. We don’t need to be lectured to right now, but conversation is crucial. I’ve written a few posts about Covid and the global shutdown on What’s Your Modus?, but right now I thought I’d send this letter and make a quick video. Let me start with this. It’s okay to be on edge. You don’t get much more uncertainty than where we are at right now.  We are restricted in movement and action for an indefinite period of time. &n ..read more

A construction team planning work openly and honestly. When we look at a Personal Kanban, its simplicity belies its power. Visualizing our work as individuals and as teams and even as teams of teams creates trust, reliability, and understanding. When we want to co-ordinate work, these are serious prerequisites. The image above is from a construction trailer, they are engaged in a Lean Construction exercise known as a "pull-plan". Each color is a different contractor, each diamond is a delivery or a milestone.  In this case we have five different contractors whose daily work relies on the ..read more