Pomodoro and Kanban for Greater Household Throughput

Better Kanban

Pomodoro splits for cleanliness

We’ve written before about the Pomodoro technique, which is (at its most simple) dividing your work into 25 minute chunks and having a bit of rest and recap at either end.I use the Pomodoro Daisuki plugin for Chrome for this. Pomodoro Daisuki is a hybrid Personal Kanban / Pomodoro app that lets you build quick and disposable Personal Kanbans to quickly get stuff done.But … it doesn’t stop there.We use LeanKit to manage work for Modus and Personal Kanban. That Personal Kanban looks like this:But I, like some people (not others, I know) tend to relax while cleaning things. So, I noticed that during my Pomodoro breaks I was usually cleaning bits of the house.So, in Pomodoro Daisuki, I built this second “attack the house” Personal Kanban. Nothing here is pressing. There is no “need” to get these done. I’d just like a cleaner house and this lets me see what could be focused on during the break. For me, I have a few minutes, and at the end of this rather mindless task I get the gift of a slightly cleaner house.Note that all of these are pretty tiny tasks – maybe 5 minutes long if I really slow down. But I’ve noticed that keeping this up and using it means that I work my way around to tasks I would ordinarily forget about. For example, “Change filter in the fridge” is in that done pile somewhere. That was a three minute task that results in clean water and a healthy fridge.Another thing I should note is that if I don’t feel like cleaning – I don’t clean. This isn’t a board to force me to clean. It’s a board to help me engage in productive, rewarding, and somewhat enjoyable stuff during my break.One last point … note that we are using two tools for two different purposes. Examine what your needs are and use the right tool!

Pomodoro Daisuki–Session Based Personal Kanban and Pomodoro

Today I installed the Pomodoro Daisuki app in Chrome and thought I’d give a quick experience report.

So far today, Tonianne and I have run our entire workday using Pomodoro Daisuki. Yes, it has the usual Pomodoro functionality, but some extra benefits.

Daisuki Kanban Desktop

As you can see here, it comes with the fastest set up, easiest use cardwall tool I think I’ve ever seen. It enforces no WIP limits, but it does give you cards with colored “tape” to quickly set up and distinguish a variety of tasks.

Today, Tonianne and I are editing our next book about using Personal Kanban for Meetings. So we’ve already done a few Pomodoros in the book.

The nice thing here is that when you are in focused productivity mode, you don’t want to move around from application to application. With this, you can easily move the current work to done and then pull in the next task.

Pomodoro Daisuki top line

Pomodoros work as you would expect them. You hit the “Start” button and you get a 25 minute timer. A nice touch is that when you have break time, you can choose between a five and a fifteen minute respite.

The “Show Stats” button is compelling, but in the end it merely shows a count of the Pomodoros you’ve done so far. One can hope that it will have more features in the future.

daisuki resting

The only drawback is that once you start a Pomodoro or a break … you can’t stop! There is no “oops” button. So it treats the Pomodoro timebox a little too religiously. But, because these types of things tend to be fixed over time – I invite you to check the comments below to see if they do, indeed fix this.

Would You, Could You on a Plane?

As a matter of fact, yes.I boarded the first leg of my flight from Seattle to Hanoi. I had 19 hours of flying ahead of me. I also had a backlog, and no wifi. Agile Zen was not going to be useful for me. So, I opened Open Office Writer and made a quick table.I had a series of things to do, but with a few constraints. The first was that I was likely to fall asleep at some point, so I wanted to knock out the most important task first. The second was that I had a list of commitments I'd made over the week and needed to make good on them. Fortunately, I have a 17 hour battery and a 4 hour battery as backup, so I had enough juice to cover me.In no particular order I wrote down my work. I had 14 papers to read for Hanoi, so I began with those.  I knew that not finishing them first would mean I'd read them when I was too tired to retain anything. Then I went to work on the feature sets for the new software projects. Finally I ended with blog posts (of which this is one).In the end, I had a full accounting of what I'd done - so I could make sure that the files and work completed in-flight made it to the appropriate people and after-action steps were taken.I want to point out again, you don't need special hardware or software, you just need to visualize your work, limit your WIP, and prioritize.

Announcing the Launch of iKan, the Personal Kanban iPhone App

You asked for it, and we listened. Today we are proud to announce the launch of the first Personal Kanban iPhone app, iKan.When we set out to build it, we decided to focus on a few key things:1. Small Screen Many Tasks -  We wanted to make the best use of the screen real estate on the iPhone, so we built the app vertically.2. KISS - We wanted the initial release to be extremely basic. In future updates we will respond to YOUR needs, and additional features will be based on YOUR input. So please keep us posted as to the direction you'd like to see iKan take. We already have a long list of upgrades in our pipeline, but are primarily interested in how you are actually using the app.3. Use Your Data - In the first version, we have had importation from Zen.  (Zen, unfortunately, never let you write data back from the API. In one of their updates, the import also ceased to function.).4. Start with Basics then Build to Suit - Each iKan starts with an entry-level Personal Kanban value stream with Ready / Doing / Done sections. You can however, create your own column headings and set your own WIP limits.In the coming weeks, we'll have a series of short tutorial videos for iKan - so stay tuned!Special thanks to Jeremy Lightsmith, Gary Bernhardt and Corey Ladas who were all vital in making iKan a reality.Get your copy of iKan at the iTunes Store.NOTE: If you want to help create an Android app, talk to us!

InfoPak 3 - Personal Kanban Design Patterns: Inspiration to Discover Your Flow

Info Pak3 Personal Kanban Design Patterns

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Jim Benson

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Modus Cooperandi is pleased to announce the release of its third Personal Kanban InfoPak. InPersonal Kanban Design Patterns: Inspiration to Discover Your Flowwe present a series of patterns for individuals as well as for small "teams." Among the topics discussed: approaches tailored to specific users (i.e. children and authors) and situations (i.e. non-linear work); ways in which productivity tools such as GTD and Pomodoro extend the value of your Personal Kanban; how "coping mechanisms" such as retrospectives shed light on work patterns that have helped or hindered productivity in the past.For best results and access to links, please download the presentation. As always, please feel free to embed, distribute, and/or comment on this or any of our other InfoPaks.