Personal Kanban and Recovering from Major Surgery

At the end of February my father went into the hospital for a major surgical procedure. You might remember how I made sure nothing was going to be missed when we went to the surgeon for a consult by using a Personal Kanban to track all of the questions we were looking for the answers to right in my moleskine notebook.

My Moleskine Personal Kanban ready to consult with the surgeon.

The difficulty of aiding my father through all of this is that he lives in another state. This means that I was going to have to be highly organized in order to hold my job, hold my family here and help aid my Mom and Dad in another state all at the (almost) same time. I made arrangements for my job, and managed to organize my family here while I was away by making it a family affair.

Our ‘Kitchen Command Central’ Personal Kanban.

My Father though was going to be a very different story.

My parents have had no previous experience with Personal Kanban. That is until I showed up for the surgeon consult that morning and I opened my notebook. While we were meeting with the surgeon I was asking questions and writing the answers down and doing the same for my parents questions. Afterwards we sat in the waiting room and I went over all the questions and answers with them, they loved how the Personal Kanban had worked. They saw that we had every concern addressed and while my Mom and Dad were still trying to take in the answer from the previous question during the consult, I was writing down the question and answer the surgeon was addressing in real-time. So points they might have missed during our consult we covered completely afterwards in the waiting room. They were impressed.

When it was time for my father to be discharged from the rehab center, I knew it was going to a lot to juggle. Boy was I right. It was overwhelming. There were home healthcare nurse(s), Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, and Social Workers who would be coming to their home. That was enough to think about but then we were handed the prescriptions. There were 19 in all. That’s right 19 prescriptions. I have to admit, I was not only overwhelmed, I was panicked!

There were two major goals we had and my father had:

1. His mobility. He needed to regain his strength. He needed to get up and move more and more with each day.
2. His over all well-being. A big part of this health puzzle was going to be making sure he got all his medicines and all on time.

On the way home my mind was racing. I somehow had to pull all this together and put my Mom at ease, because she was going to be doing most of the work and to put my father at ease by letting him see that little steps in the right direction would lead him to his bigger overall goal of being the healthiest he can be. Helping my Mom and Dad be at ease would in turn help me to be more at ease, especially since I wasn’t going to be able to be there on a daily basis. That all led me to one thought – Personal Kanban.

So I sat down at the dining room table and I began to make a mobility Personal Kanban for my father. I thought if he was able to get up 3 times a day and be mobile (walking or going up and down stairs) this would help him greatly in achieving his goal for overall health. So I set up 3 times a week for a full week.

15 minutes each day 3 times a day.

We knew when he arrived home that stairs were not going to be mastered right away, all we wanted was for him to be mobile as much as he could handle. Stairs would eventually make it into the mix, but we had to patient, and that was understood.

WIP lane and Completed lane

I explained to both my father and my Mom that when he got up his first stop would be the Personal Kanban to move over a sticky note into the WIP lane. After he was up and moving as long as he could handle on his way back to where he wanted to rest he should then move the sticky note into the completed lane. I knew that there would be days that he might not move one sticky note over because he wouldn’t have the strength to exercise, but that was okay. He would be able to in effect grow into this Personal Kanban. Although I knew it was very ambitious to start off with, I had faith and knew he’d eventually grow into it.

Additional Workouts

By adding an additional ‘holding pen’ at the bottom of the ready lane of additional workouts this would be another way to allow him to grow into the Personal Kanban as he became stronger and stronger. If he didn’t get into these additional workouts for a long time, that was fine. I wanted them to be a visual goal for him to reach for.

This is the mobility Personal Kanban all set and ready to go.

Action on the mobility Personal Kanban

Since we set this mobility Personal Kanban up, my father has used it. Although he has not gotten the use out of it that he/we wished for because unfortunately he has been very sick and had several set backs. He has just had a second surgery to correct some complications and will soon be home again and this will be there for him. He has already talked to me about being excited to complete it and have my Mom take a photograph for me. This Personal Kanban is a huge visual motivator for him. Sometimes when people aren’t feeling well and go through a long period of being sick, they can’t see anything positive, this Personal Kanban has shown him visually that even 15 minutes of mobility (something we take for granted) is a positive step forward.

Now that we had tackled the first part of our overall goal, we needed to tackle the second part. After I arrived back at the house with the 19 prescriptions I knew this was Personal Kanban territory. I sat at the table for 2 1/2 hours sorting through all the prescriptions. Putting them together not only for each day of the week but also for the time of each day that they would need to be taken. As they sorted out it was apparent that the medicines were going to have to be done at 4 times each day. Once in the morning, at 12 noon, at 4pm and after dinner in the evening.

I went right to work designing the Medicine Personal Kanban.

Medicine Tracking Personal Kanban

I set it up with all days of the week listed and then the sticky notes each with the time of day the medicines were due. When the proper container (I had set up containers with the day and time on it and the proper medicines inside) was given to my father and he took them then the sticky note from the ‘med times‘ lane was then moved over to the ‘taken‘ lane.

You will note the orange sticky added, on this day he required an additional medicine added to his regimen.

Even when something unexpected popped up, like an additional medicine added to his regimen, my Mom would then add an additional sticky note in the proper area so that the newly added medicine would not be forgotten.

Almost completed, keeping every medicine on track.

You will notice there is no WIP lane on this Personal Kanban, that is because the taking of the medicine is an immediate task, therefore I decided to skip the WIP lane.

Keeping 19 prescriptions in order and given in a timely fashion is a daunting task. This by far has been one of the most successful Personal Kanbans I have ever designed. My Mom has told me repeatedly that she had no clue how she was going to manage all of the medicines he came home with and that this medicine tracker Personal Kanban has been a Godsend for her and my father. It eased her mind and I know it certainly eased my mind knowing that he was getting all the proper medicines at the proper times.

Going in to this experience I knew that health is not an exact science. But this is a lesson that is sometimes hard to grasp. It was very important to remember especially with the mobility Personal Kanban, this was not going to be like any previous one we had used. This board was going to depend on good health. I’ve been using Personal Kanban long enough to fully expect a board to evolve with my needs . I learned so much from the use of this board. Usually I set up a board, sit down and start tackling and moving tasks into the WIP lane and then over to the completed lane and ta-da I am done. This was not the case with our mobility Personal Kanban. There were tasks in the ready lane but sometimes because of ‘health complications‘ those tasks would not be done, but that was okay. We learned that even moving one sticky note over on a particular week was a step in the right direction. Small steps leading the way to a bigger overall healthy goal.

It is very difficult to help aid your family when they are not in the same geographical area that you are in, these two Personal Kanbans have helped my family immensely. I know that they will continue to do so as my father continues to regain his health back and that gives us a little more piece of mind moving forward.

Follow me on twitter: @topsurf

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Want to know more on Personal Kanban? Visit the Personal Kanban website. I highly recommend purchasing the book: Personal Kanban Mapping Work / Navigating Life by Tonianne DeMaria Barry and Jim Benson.

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Tracking Student Progress with LeanKit Kanban

When I began this year of school, there was one big idea on my mind all summer that I knew I wanted to see become a reality. I had a few discussions with my school’s director about it, just as when I came to her with the idea for our ABC’s Personal Kanban, she was excited and encouraging.

My online Personal Kanban- combining all areas of my life on one board.

I knew since I began using LeanKit Kanban for my own personal use at home that it would be a great tool for my classroom. If I could keep track of my professional projects, running my non-profit, my family tasks and extracurricular activities all by using LeanKit I knew it was a good fit for the classroom.

This year I wanted to use LeanKit to track my students progress with benchmark goals, have all the information in one place, easily accessible and highly organized. Doing all of this without multiple folders filled with papers was a HUGE plus. No more sitting on the floor the night before parent/teacher conferences with papers and folders spread out all over trying to organize each student’s folder and papers to go over with the parent. This year I have tried to become as green as I could in our classroom, I started all communications through email instead of sending papers home, I sent our monthly newsletters home electronically as well. This would be another way to help aid in the green effort and be a huge time saver as well.

This was my first time using the board purely for classroom use. Therefor my board went through many, many changes. I know what I will start out thinking will work, sometimes when you put the board to task, just doesn’t work how I intended it to work. So as I began to use the board I was constantly re-arranging it to suit my needs. I would set it up, begin to use it, find something not working well for me and then I would shift lanes around. I love how my board evolved with my changing needs as the year went on. I eventually would like to be able to use this board with all my parents having access to it. The parents can see exactly where their child is at in the classroom. Instead of putting the student names on the cards I could assign each child a specific number that way each parent would look for the corresponding number for their child and know exactly what their child is working on. I am excited for the parent/teacher/education collaboration I believe would come from that access.

After I initially set up the board I showed it to several educator and Personal Kanban friends to get their input. I knew this board was not going to be used as a ‘traditional’ Personal Kanban for me. The flow would be totally different from anything I have ever worked in before. When I first set up my board I did so with each student having just one task card. As I began to use the board I noticed right away that this was not going to be effective and so the changes really started to begin.

One of the first board set-ups I tried. It would later evolve into the board pictured below.

I decided I needed many task cards for each student. As the year went on and we moved on to more and more benchmarks I began to add more lanes. I realized rather quickly that each lane needed a card for each student, to track exactly where they were with each particular benchmark.

The 'almost' finally evolved board.

So as each card was added and the student was tested, their results were placed right on the task card and they were put into the proper part of the lane. I decided that each card would not be moved to the completed lane. I thought that would become to confusing for me when I was adding all the final results, therefor I decided I needed just one more lane.

Placeholder lane for all student cards after posted on completed card.

I decided to add one last card for each student that would go into the completed lane. On this card I would post all the benchmark results. As I added each benchmark result on the corresponding student’s card I moved that corresponding benchmark card from the original benchmark lane over to the Placeholder lane.

Once I had every student’s benchmark cards moved over to the Placeholder lane I knew their results were posted on the new card and completed therefor I could put that new card right into the completed lane.

The night before my parent/teacher conferences for the first time in 10 years I was not stressed out. The only task I had left to do was to open up my LeanKit Kanban board and look in the completed lane and make sure one last time that I had every student in that lane with a completed card. That took me less than 5 minutes. For each conference all I had to do was to open up the appropriate student card and read the benchmarks to each parent. Everything I needed was posted on each card.

This set-up worked for me in my pre-k classroom wonderfully. I understand that every classroom is different and has different needs. I wanted to share what I have done this year because my hope is that it gets other educators to begin to think about how they could use LeanKit Kanban to fit their needs in their classroom. It is so customizable the possibilities of use are almost limitless. Educators could use it to track any and all of the projects in their classroom. Taking it even another step forward in your classroom, this would be a great tool to have your students (at all age levels, K-College) use to track their project(s) as well. I am a firm believer that there is not any circumstance to which you can’t apply a Personal Kanban. It aids the learning process in such a positive way by helping students to become more effective and efficient in their work whether working on their own or in a collaborative situation.

My attempt to go green and become organized with much less stress this year in my classroom has been a complete success.

Follow me on twitter @topsurf

Coming up next week - A full wrap-up on this year’s ABC’s Personal Kanban we are using for the 2nd year in a row in the classroom.

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Interested in finding out more about LeanKit Kanban? Visit the LeanKit Kanban website. LeanKit Kanban is also available for mobile use. Check out the iPad/iPhone versions via iTunes.

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For more information on Personal Kanban visit the website. Want to learn more? I highly recommend purchasing the book: Personal Kanban Mapping Work / Navigating Life by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry.

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Personal Kanban Helps Me to be a Better Educator

This year I started in a new preschool class.  I taught  3 year-old students this year.  I admit I was more than a bit nervous.  After having taught 4-5 year-old students for the past 10 years, I thought it would be a difficult transition for me with younger students.  Going in I knew after the success we had last year in our classroom with the ABC’s Personal Kanban,  I wanted to start that success even earlier with my 3 year-old students to set the stage for the rest of their educational journey.

I did just that, by implementing our stoplight safety kanban, then a Thanksgiving kanban while all year long we all have been flying a kite with a classroom personal kanban with huge success.

However, I discovered very quickly, there was even more room in my classroom for Personal Kanban, on a much more personal level: my own.

My realization started in the summer when I began preparing my classroom for the students arrival on the first day of school.  I was in a new classroom and I had many, many tasks that needed to be completed.

Organizing the classroom

When I first walked into my classroom I was so overwhelmed.  I knew I wanted to re-do a lot to make it warm and inviting for my new students.  I had no clue where even to begin, so I just dove right in. I would start in one part of the classroom and then need something from somewhere else in my classroom, get sidetracked and started on something else.  I decided to curb my problem of starting many tasks and completing none by putting a Personal Kanban right on top of my desk.

Personal Kanban on top of my desk.

It worked out so well that as it became time for my other teachers to come into the classroom to help get the room ready I began to put their tasks right on the Personal Kanban, and my desk ended up becoming  their first stop every morning upon entering the classroom.  It became our classroom command central.  Our tasks went from being sidetracked to completed.

Look at that completed lane!

Once school started and I began to plan and work heavily out of my teacher planning book. This was my teaching ‘bible’ so to speak.  This book came home every night with me and went back to school every morning. I never realized how much prepping I would need to do for each class. There were also items I needed to purchase or find in our art and craft closets. There was just so much to remember to make each class successful.  So I decided to just turn to the next page spread in my book and put a Personal Kanban there.  That way when I was preparing for a day or a week, I just had to turn the page and add the tasks I needed to complete. Whatever I needed to complete before the next class was always right there with me (at home or school) in my planning book.

Teacher Planning Book Personal Kanban

This is something I have continued all year long in my planning book and I couldn’t be happier.  This book has been my constant companion. The book with my Personal Kanban right in it has been a safety net and a  lifesaver for me this year.

My desk Personal Kanban evolved as the year went on.  Once class started we realized it wasn’t going to work out well being at the end of my desk.  My classroom is very busy and many students often gather at my desk and with that,  many items often gather on my desk during our class time.  So I decided to move it right on top of my desk calendar which is further away from other activities on my desk.

Desktop Calendar Personal Kanban

What evolved with this Personal Kanban has been simply incredible.  I would sit at my desk at the end of each day and add what tasks we needed to be done in the classroom at the beginning of the next day.  This worked out wonderfully because while doing this I began to discuss the tasks I was adding with my other teachers and get their input, we often made many changes to our art projects and circle time activities thanks to this collaboration, which was an added bonus. We began to recognize much more clarity. It improved our decisions.  Now everyone was more involved in the decision making process and added real value to our classroom activities.   When we entered the classroom the next day our Personal Kanban was all set and we were ready to dive right in to the day’s activities.

This has been hands down the best year I’ve ever had in the classroom.  There are many positive takeaways I have had this year.   Using Personal Kanban  has made me a better educator. I have realized by being more organized I was able to accomplish so much more with my students and have more quality time to spend, learn and grow right along with them.  After all, that is why I became a teacher.

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Next Post coming this Wednesday: Tracking Student Progress with LeanKit Kanban.

Follow me on twitter- @topsurf

Want more productivity photographs? You can view my collection on flickr.

Have productivity photos you’d like to share with others?  Join the  flickr  Productivity, Kanban, GTD, Lean group and add yours.

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Want to know about Personal Kanban and not sure where to start?  Visit the website.  I highly recommend purchasing the book -Personal Kanban Mapping Work / Navigating Life by Tonianne DeMaria Barry and Jim Benson.

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Personal Kanban it’s a Family Affair

Do you ever sit on the weekend and think about what you have coming up in the next week? And when you begin to think about what your children have coming up and your husband, you become overwhelmed. And well, you just don’t want to venture into the week wondering how you are going to keep everything straight and get everything done. This happens to me every weekend. Well, let me re-phrase that, the first part happens to me but I don’t become overwhelmed because I take action instead.

It is no small secret that you can’t do everything yourself. A well oiled machine’s gears only work well with all the parts of the machine when they are well oiled. I like to think that my family works in this way. I believe that we do because we use a Personal Kanban to keep our well-oiled machine running.

Last week, we had an daunting amount going on in our family. I was traveling, my husband was going to be traveling and my daughter was starting practices for her spring sport among other activities she had going on. Immediately I got out the sticky notes. I asked each member of my family what color sticky notes they wanted their tasks to be on. I asked my family members this because I wanted each of them to be able to take one glance at the board and know exactly what each of us is doing at any given time, and I wanted them to be a color that made them happy.

A lot of the time when I am entertaining or making a special recipe or meal, I will make a Personal Kanban right on my kitchen counter.

My kitchen counter Personal Kanban

It’s usually a smaller scale Personal Kanban and is perfect for my use. However, when involving my whole family with a lot of tasks, I need more room and need it to be highly visible where all members of my family can access it.

In the past I have liked to use the refrigerator, but the Post-its wouldn’t stick to the door, so I decided on the cabinet that is most used, the dish cabinet. (No one can eat without going into this cabinet!)

Our family kitchen cabinet Personal Kanban

My husband chose the blue, my daughter the purple and I was the pink color sticky notes. This worked out great because I didn’t need to add names, just what each task was and we all knew immediately whose task it was. I even decided to add the day the task was going on, that way when I filled the ready lane I could put every task up in chronological order, it made it easier to wade through.

An example of our task sticky note.

I set up our family Personal Kanban with three lanes ready, WIP (work in progress) and done. Then I filled up the cabinet doors with the tasks. Sunday came, and we dove right into the week.

By Tuesday we were in a very good flow.

What I love most about doing a family personal kanban is the fact that it involves everyone. While I was away my daughter and husband moved their tasks and kept each other in check. Here’s another thing that I love: it’s like I have a safety net in place, it ensures that we are working together as a family (even if one of us is traveling.) I’m not worried that my daughter won’t get to her activities on time. I know it’s getting accomplished.

Saturday Afternoon

By the end of the week, we had wrapped up almost all the tasks, we were just waiting for my husband to arrive back home from his business trip, so we could enjoy the weekend together as a family.

I have been using family Personal Kanbans since I discovered Personal Kanban, and I am always thrilled that each time I (we) learn and evolve while using them.

My daughter gives her appreciation

Although it didn’t happen on our kitchen cabinet Personal Kanban, in the past my daughter has even shown her happiness on our progress by leaving a little happy face right on the board.

Here are a few take-aways that I have discovered since implementing Personal Kanban in my home with my family.

• We learn something new about each other with every new board we set up.
• Our family boards are constantly evolving with each new one we make together.
• Putting your week on a board and being able to visualize your upcoming tasks somehow gives you a wave of calm.
• I sleep better at night when I’m traveling knowing my family members have the visual reminders of important tasks that can’t get overlooked.
• We learn to trust each other more.
• By using color specific Post-it notes, each of us can glance and immediately know what we need to do at any given moment. This has worked much better for us than all of us using the same color and just putting names on each of the post it notes. That can get very confusing, especially when you have a lot of tasks.
• By each of us having accountability it adds to a great feeling when the board is complete at the end of the week. It feeds our brain and makes us happy. It’s brain candy!*
• This is something we work on together as a family all week long. It brings us closer together.
• Each board is a direct reflection of our family and where we are all at together in our lives.
• This time it was a kitchen cabinet, next time it might be on a white board, on the bathroom mirror or on our family room coffee table. We are doing what works for us at each unique moment in time. This is what I love most about Personal Kanban, it’s personal.

I highly recommend trying this out with your family, or even on a smaller scale, by making a Personal Kanban just for yourself.

How are you using Personal Kanban? Have you tried it with your family? What is your experience? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences, feel free to drop them in the comments below.

Follow me on twitter – @topsurf

Like this post? Want to read more? Check out how I am using Personal Kanban in my classroom by reading this post and this post. Also take a look at other ways I have used Personal Kanban to become more effective and efficient by reading this post.

Coming up next: Find out how I am using a Personal Kanban in LeanKit Kanban to track my students’ progress in my classroom.

*”When you pull that sticky note into DONE, it’s brain candy.“ This is the full quote taken from the Personal Kanban Mapping Work Navigating Life book.

Intrigued but not sure where to start or need more information? Check out Personal Kanban by visiting the website. I highly recommend purchasing the book, Personal Kanban Mapping Work/ Navigating Life by Jim Benson & Tonianne DeMaria Barry.

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Organization not the Last Straw with Personal Kanban

In my last blog post – Personal Kanban and the Onion - I stated how much Personal Kanban has changed my life.  I am a firm believer that you can apply Personal Kanban to all aspects of your life, home, work, and play.  It should come as no surprise that when friends tell me how they wish they could be more organized, the first thing I say is “you have to start using Personal Kanban, it will change your life.”  So when I started to work with Jen Straw and her company Last Straw Media, the first order of business was to get her using Personal Kanban.  She is an extremely busy owner of a social media marketing company, while also teaching part-time at the University of Tampa, whose biggest complaint was she needed to be more organized. Today I welcome her as a guest on my blog.  

I’m not the most organized person. Well, let me rephrase that, I have a tendency to keep everything up in my head. I hate lists. Always have. Always will. Making lists squashes my creativity, or at least that’s what I tell myself.

But the problem is when you go from running a TV newsroom to running your own company keeping everything you need to do up in your head, isn’t the most effective technique. Especially when you have freelance employees who aren’t located in the same place as you. One of my friends, Patty who happens to be my assistant suggested I use a Personal Kanban to get focus on the details, get organized and be able to collaborate all in one place.

So shortly after beginning Last Straw Media, she set me up on LeanKit Kanban. I’m not going to lie, I was adverse to the idea at first. It still seemed like a list to me. Did I mention I hate lists? But what I quickly found out, is Personal Kanban isn’t really about lists. Whew!

Making a list just didn't work.

The great part about Personal Kanban, is you can assign tasks to different employees– helping us keep straight who’s responsible for which tasks. It’s not as overwhelming for me because I don’t feel like I’m alone, and as an entrepreneur it’s easy to feel that way. I also love the idea, I can go into each task and write notes– notes for myself, notes for my freelancers. It’s a great way to keep up with the progress of each task and collaborate on ideas that could improve the outcome for our clients.

Personal Kanban is customizable to my company’s needs and to my personal preferences. The way I use it to stay organized is probably very different from other people who use it. In addition to my business, I also teach part-time at the University of Tampa. I can also keep that aspect of my life organized without interfering with the business aspect– something a lot of other organizational methods make more challenging.

Personal Kanban for my business.

Using the Personal Kanban board has also helped me feel like I’m really accomplishing something. I can keep track of what tasks have been completed daily, but I can also see how far I’ve come from month to month. Another amazing benefit is we can each communicate directly through the board, which in turn saves valuable time that can be eaten up with multiple emails, conference calls, etc.

Last Straw Media’s Personal Kanban board also helps keep us all accountable, particularly me. I can set up deadlines on some of the cards, if a task needs to be completed ASAP. And if something has expired, my assistant can ask me hey what happened to that task? Can I help you get it done? That’s a huge benefit to me, a huge Type-A personality, who thinks I can do everything myself.

Of course, it’s still a learning process for me the woman who loathes lists, but adores Post-Its. Did I mention, I love that the cards look like Post-Its? I even color code them with pretty colors for tasks I like to complete, like purple, and my least favorite color, yellow, for tasks I tend dislike doing.

And as each day goes by, I feel like my business is getting more and more organized, without having to waste a lot of time or spend a lot of money. Because Personal Kanban is so customizable it’s great for a start-up business, but I can also see how it will grow with me as my company grows.

~Jen Straw

Owner, Last Straw Media

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Want to learn more about Personal Kanban visit the website.

Purchase the book Personal Kanban: Mapping Work / Navigating Life 

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View my productivity photos:

Personal Kanban/Productivity Set

Moleskine Personal Kanban set

Kidzban/Classroom PK set

Productivity Apps

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