How to Simplify Your Writing Workflow with Kanban

It can be quite difficult to find the mental power to write at peak productivity regardless of your experience. While you can use notepads and rudimentary goal-setting methodologies to make yourself more productive, these are short-term solutions.

Sooner or later, you will fall back into procrastination and your writing workflow will suffer for it. Based on Smart Insights, 19% of writers took six hours or longer to write an online article in 2019. On average, it takes 65% more time to write a blog post or article than it did in 2014, prompting writers to streamline their workflows.

These problems can be amended by implementing a tried-and-tested organizational methodology to your workflow, such as the Kanban technique. Equipped with proper writing tools, in addition to Kanban, you will find inspiration to write more efficiently and fulfill your personal goals with greater ease. So, what’s Kanban about and how can you benefit from it as a writer, whether a novelist or an online content creator? Let’s dive into it.

What’s Kanban All About?

Today’s everyday life is riddled with distractions such as social media, instant messaging apps and easily accessible multimedia aimed at light entertainment. While these distractions can help us socialize and stay in touch with friends and family, they can be destructive when it comes to productivity.

Enter Kanban, a productivity system built around custom boards which can help make your workflow more Lean and focused on what matters most. Whether you work in a team or as a solo writer, Kanban can help put your thoughts into context and allow you to write better.

Choosing to integrate Kanban into your day-to-day workflow can systematically transform the way you produce content due to its effective goal-setting methodology. Coupled with a professional platform specifically designed around Kanban, you will grow as a writer and be able to track your progress with ease. Some of the benefits of using Kanban as a writer include but are not limited to:

• Moment-to-moment flexibility and control over workflow
• Streamlined productivity and a constant focus on deliverable results
• Significantly reduced the margin for error or loss of precious time
• Avoid burnout and mental stress due to better workload management
• Scalability options depending on individual projects or collaborators

Kanban in Writing – How to Simplify your Workflow

Writing Task Visualization

A common issue most writers face in the daily workflow is to stay on target when it comes to their long-term goals. It’s often difficult to recognize “why” a certain piece of content is the focus of that day’s workflow.

However, Kanban can help writers visualize the tasks they work on. Kanban allows writers to create boards and cards which represent the summary of whatever project they work on. This can effectively contextualize whatever article or post the writer is currently working on.

Nathan Holley, Chief of Content Management at Top Essay Writing and Content Editor at Grab My Essay said:

“Task visualization is extremely important in industries such as writing due to their data-based nature. Visualization can help writers identify with the papers, essays or research they are tasked with writing on a more personal level. This can make even mundane tasks more engaging, which is why it’s a great addition to any form of writing workflow, offline or on.”

Objective Performance Tracking

While writing is primarily a creativity-based task, it still demands proper tracking. Different writing types require various approaches to goal-setting and day-to-day tracking, making matters more complex as a result.

Writers often struggle with contextualizing their writing workflow, which is where Kanban can come in handy. Kanban can help writers objectively track metrics related to their writing, be it word count, keyword density or other elements.

The metrics tracked by Kanban are scalable and writers can easily modify them based on current goals, team size and deadlines. Likewise, previously tracked metrics can be analyzed for bottlenecks and growth opportunities, further elevating Kanban and its role in writing.

Creative Brainstorming

Writing numerous pieces of content of equal quality, day in and day out, can be difficult for full-time writers. This makes brainstorming and creative exercises a must.

Kanban can facilitate brainstorming and ideation by allowing writers to use linking cards in order to connect the dots between similar ideas for writing. Kanban boards can be filled with cards with different data, titles and visual elements which can then be linked via a dedicated Kanban platform.

Different ideas can be linked into chains, start to finish and help organize writing projects or potential topics for future writing. This brainstorming methodology goes hand-in-hand with workflow visualization, as it can contextualize and focus the writers’ efforts on important tasks.

Writing Workflow Templates

Lastly, once an efficient workflow has been found, you can easily memorize your methodology via a Kanban platform. Luckily, writing is a process which can be standardized into a predictable set of activities, depending on the project in question.

Card templates can help streamline and speed up writing workflow and make sure that writers deliver the best results in the shortest amount of time. Likewise, templates can be modified or redefined to eliminate potential slowdown or to make the workflow even more effective.

Melinda Sinclair, Chief of HR at Classy Essay writing service said: “If you are able to help your staff create workflow templates, make sure to do so sooner rather than later. Mechanical tasks which don’t require a human touch should be, if not automated, then made as simple as possible. Thus, project management tools and similar template-centric software can and should find its way into your pipeline.”

Streamline your Workflow with Kanban

Whether you work alone or in a team, Kanban is a great methodology to implement. Start small and visualize your tasks with boards and subsequently turn smaller milestones into easy-to-track Kanban cards.

Modern workflows are all about Lean and Agile organization, whether it be writing, IT or startup management. Learn about the ways in which Kanban can help your team grow in skill and efficiency. Before you know it, you will have reinvented your writing workflow into an efficient, well-oiled machine focused on high-quality deliverables.

This was a guest blog. Please review our guest blog disclaimer.