Weekly Planning: Week One Challenges and Getting Better in Week Two

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” ― Maya Angelou

I used one of our best board templates for Weekly Planning, but after the first week of flowing cards, I still found ways to improve my board. This should not have been a surprise, as I tell all our clients to start with a simple board and then flow a few cards to see how it feels. So here is what I learned and improved after my first week.

Boards Improvements

Looking back at the previous blog, the board now has a single “Done” column instead of a “Done” column in each swimlane. This is a small change, but it’s visually pleasing. The main reason for this change was my CONWIP (Constant Work in Process), which I set in the top-level container of this board called “WIP”. It controls the Work In Progress (WIP) for all the WIP on this board that I chose to visualize in multiple swimlanes, “Weekly” and “In Progress”.

I still have a WIP limit for all my WIP columns, which are always represented by a yellow indicator at the top-left of the container. However, having an overall WIP ensures I don’t get carried away in my swimlanes.

The other issue was having the “Done” columns nested inside the “WIP” container and, therefore, my CONWIP. This caused all cards in the “Done” column to count in my CONWIP. This prevented me from keeping my cards in the “Done” column to feel satisfied with the work I previously completed.

I also found that expanding the “Doing” column to accommodate two weekly cards made more sense, especially since I will never have more than two cards in this column.

I will respect my WIP limit and move to the “Done” column my “Weekly Plan” cards, regardless of whether I complete all the tasks on that card. This is this week’s big realization, which I will explore next…

My first weekly card was a disaster!

Having a single weekly card with 19 tasks feels better than having 19 individual cards. On the one hand, having 19 cards would have caused me to know right away that 19 cards were too much. On the other hand, treating these as 19 tasks helps me organize my standard work or habits I seek to develop every week. I will try again to complete these in a single week by being more disciplined next week. For the record, my score for the first week was 5 tasks completed out of 19, with multiple due dates missed. :(

For the second “Weekly Plan” card, I completed 8 tasks out of 18, which is still not great. However, I found a flaw in how I structured my checklists, which I will correct in next week’s card. Stay tuned for my next post, revealing what I have done.

What is hurting me the most is not meditating as I used to. I see it now that I have completely lost this healthy habit. I have gone two weeks without a single meditation, even though I used to do these daily a few years ago. I thought adding only three meditation tasks would be the easy way to show success, but instead, it highlights that I choose to skip these meditations every week. This is now something I need to assess.

This is why having a Kanban board to visualize your weekly goals is crucial. I love meditating. I always feel great afterward, which makes my days feel longer and more fulfilling. So why have I skipped these lately? It’s no longer a habit; I must set a time to protect these meditations. I must improve this ASAP, or be honest that I no longer value meditation. This is not a fun realization, but the data doesn’t lie.

Recap for Week Two

The board is evolving to create the ideal workflow. My decision to set up weekly cards with standard work/habits as tasks organized in checklists is still the way to go. I will wait another week or two to save my latest weekly card as a template that I will set on a recurrence to get created automatically every Sunday.

Now that I have two weeks of cards, I am getting more cards in the “Done” column, which makes me feel good. For now, I will keep these cards in the “Done” column, but I will likely archive them monthly.

Let’s see how my meditations go next week. This is my biggest concern because all the books I read about happiness always mention meditation. In your case, it could be another realization: your company is no longer focusing on what it should be, or you stopped a different habit that was good for you. Whatever your board and cards expose, take the time to think about it and decide what’s best for you!

Stay tuned for the next blog in this series, which will be linked here once it’s live.