8 Ways You Can Use Kanban to Organize Your Life

Maintaining organization in your life is a huge challenge. In one way or another, there will always be something in need of order. If you are finding it hard to keep everything in your life less chaotic and more organized, then it’s about time that you apply a system that will help you keep track of all the things you need to do along with some tools that will help make it easy for you to organize your life. One of these organizational systems is Kanban.

Organize Your Life with Kanban

The Kanban system has proven itself useful for many professionals, organizations and even world-renowned corporations. Being a key process implemented by Toyota, Kanban has made it easy for this company and for many others to create a more organized production process, helping them guarantee that products are made on time and according to their quality standards. 

As more and more people are discovering the amazing benefits of using Kanban, they are now implementing the system not just for professional use, but also for personal purposes. So if you are looking for a specific process that will help you organize your life, here are some ideas on how you can use the Kanban system. 

1. Create your daily to-do list

The best way to keep track of all the things that you need to accomplish daily is by setting up a to-do list. With a personal Kanban board, you can simply create individual cards for each of your tasks and organize them in three columns depending on their status: To-Do, In Progress, Done. This gives you a better visual of your progress as you go through your to-do list for the day. Whether it’s to buy some groceries, walk your dog, tutor your kids or accomplish some tasks at work, a personal Kanban board can help you organize your life. 

2. Note down your ideas

Every now and then, our brain hatches some great ideas that we want to eventually put into action. But if we don’t do anything to those ideas, they will just remain as what they are —  concepts that are not put into reality. To help you realize your ideas, creating an idea board using Kanban can be very helpful. This allows you to build a process that you can follow to help you realize your ideas and turn them into accomplishments.

3. Create a weekly plan to organize your life

Aside from using Kanban boards for your ideas and daily plans, you can also use it to map out your weekly plans. Looking forward to a busy month? Then use Kanban to create a visual layout of your activities for each week. With a Kanban board, you can have a clearer picture of what you are up against for the coming weeks and avoid missing out any important stuff, be it at work or at home. You can even create a checklist within each task card, listing down more specific items that you need to complete for each card.

4. Manage multiple projects at once

Being a project manager means having the ability to keep track of every step and progress of the whole project. A single oversight can cause the whole project to fail, so it’s important that everything goes as planned. To help you manage a project, or even multiple projects at once, without missing out on any important process, a Kanban board can help you and your whole project team monitor everything that is going on. With a Kanban board, it will be a lot easier for you and your team to manage and measure the flow of work within your team. It will also help you make sure that specific process policies are followed accordingly.

5. Work with a remote team

Visibility is a very important aspect when it comes to working with a remote team. Given the fact that there are less physical interactions, it’s important that remote team managers make use of the right apps and tools to monitor the tasks assigned to each team member. To help maintain the team’s productivity, you can simply set up a virtual Kanban board and give everyone in your team access to it. You and your team can then schedule a meeting to discuss all your pending tasks and update the board according to what tasks each of you have to accomplish. Add cards for each task, incorporate details and resources, assign cards to the right person and monitor the progress. Apart from helping you organize your life, a Kanban board can also help provide you and your whole team with a better visual of your progress at work.

6. Plan a vacation

Feel like taking a break from work and life? Then plan a vacation and use Kanban to help you organize it without stressing so much. Planning a vacation is not always as easy as it sounds, considering all the things that you need to check and prepare beforehand. You have to choose your destination and the date for your vacation, then find out how you will get there, save up enough money, file for leave at work, pack your bags and necessities, buy some stuff you might need for the trip, and many more. It can be hectic. But if you have everything listed on a Kanban board, your vacation planning can be stress-free and smooth sailing. A Kanban board will help you make sure that you don’t miss out on anything that you need to prepare for your trip.

7. Plan an event

Event planning is a huge undertaking. It will take more than just one person to pull it off. If you are an event planner, or you’d simply like to personally plan an event — a birthday party for your kid, an anniversary celebration for your parents, or maybe your own simple wedding, then you can definitely make use of a Kanban board to get the event planning going smoothly. A Kanban board will make it a lot easier for you to monitor everything, from the catering and event décor to guest list and logistics.

8. Create a family board

Got a busy schedule with your family daily? Maybe you have some errands that you need to run, along with attending your kid’s recital or buying a present for a friend’s birthday party. If you and your family are always on the go, with so many things to do on a daily basis, a family Kanban board can be very helpful in helping you keep up with all of your chores and tasks as a family. Whether you have a big or small family, using a Kanban board and sharing it with your family will help you organize your life as a family and maintain a more harmonious relationship with them, as it will help you commit to all of your daily responsibilities.

Use Kanban Zone to Organize Your Life

No matter what your priorities are in life, you can always take advantage of the power of Kanban to help improve your productivity. With the right implementation of Kanban, coupled with discipline, you’ll be able to improve your productivity and accomplish your personal and professional goals. For a virtual Kanban board that can support your productivity needs, check out Kanban Zone.