In the past month I’ve been learning about the wonders and usefulness of a Kanban board.

If you’re wondering what a Kanban board is, you’re not alone! I didn’t know either until I listened to some youtube videos showing how this project management tool helps to get things done.

A Kanban board is a simple and visual way to organize your projects that will help you limit how many many works you have in progress as well as give you the maximum efficiency for the time you put into your projects.

You can use a Kanban board for any projects that you’re working on and they are really a useful tool for creative entrepreneurs to help motivate and help them reach their goals.

As a writer, making my own Kanban board has really helped me get organized. I’ll show you what I did below…

 

3 Tips to Setup Your Own Kanban Board to reach your writing goals

The reason I decided to make my Kanban board, was because I was so tired of writing goals each year that I never reached. It was discouraging to write a list of books I wanted to write and then maybe only get one book written by the end of the year.

I was desperate to make this year, a year where I could look back and say I not only enjoyed writing those wonderful book ideas I had written down, but I also reached my goals. If you’ve had similar struggles with reaching your goals, you might find using a Kanban board really helpful for you too.

Here’s the KanBan Board I created to help reach my writing goals in the next 90 days…

As you can see by the above picture, I have my “to-do” list cluttered with sticky notes. But the really fun and motivating part is that I can break the tasks down into small goals that I list on small sticky notes.

Here’s how it works…

1. Divide your board into 30, 60, 90 day goals. What you do, is write down the tasks that need to get done during that time. I find it helpful to use sticky notes for each task. For example, if you’re writing a book, most likely that task will include both 30 and 60 days(unless you’re a really fast writer). Include both writing, editing, self-publishing as well as book marketing, newsletter and social media tasks in your goals too.

2.Use different colored sticky notes for each type of task.  As you can see in the above picture, I used 3 different colours. The green sticky note is for my writing tasks, the pink sticky notes are for writing email newsletters and blogging goals. The purple sticky notes are for book marketing and social media goals.

It can be really helpful to separate out by colour what task you’re working on at the time. That way, all you need to do is glance at your Kanban board and you already know what is on your to do list that day.

3.At the top of your Kanban board is your “To-Do” items; in the middle are your “get-it-done” tasks; closer to the bottom is your “awesome-job” items that you’ve finished.  So the way it works, is after you’ve written out all the tasks you want to work on for the next 90 days and you’ve put them in small sticky notes as small tasks – you put those on the top of the board under your “To-Do” List.  Then about 1/3 of the way down the board you move one of your “To-Do” sticky notes down the board into your  “Get-It-Done” List. When you’ve finished with that “Get-It-Done” task, you can then move that task down into the “Awesome-Job” List.

Note: you can name the different lists whatever name that will inspire you. The really helpful part of this is that you continue to move your tasks from your “to-do” list all the way down until it’s in your “awesome-job” list.  I find this visually motivating for myself as I work on writing my book.  What helps me, is that I’ll write down as a task: “I will write 6 pomodoros(25 minute focused writing time-slots) today in Book 1”. Then when I’ve finished those Pomodoros, I can put that task in the “awesome-job” list… which I find is wonderful for encouraging myself in the writing journey.

I hope this Kanban board is helpful for you too and that you find that it simplifies your writing process and motivates you toward reaching your goals!

 

Have you used a Kanban board or something similar to reach your writing goals?  Please do comment below, I’d love to hear what you find works for you as you write 🙂