My approach to to-do lists powered by Kanboard

It can be hard to decide how to spend our free time. We may have some ideas about activities to engage in, but our brains prefer not to invest effort in something deemed unrewarding. Alas, among such things we can find work on quite useful tasks. Usually these activities don't yield immediate tangible output, and it takes months and years to achieve our goals. Say, learning a new language or obtaining any other comprehensive skill. Consequently, our motivation tends to fade off over time. Faced with a choice between difficult or boring tasks and something easy, we often succumb to the temptation, and turn to social media or TV shows.

This summary is based on two books I've recently read: "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman and "Willpower and self-control: How genes and the brain hinder our struggle against temptations" by Irina Yakutenko. The former explores how our brains trick us from a psychologist's perspective, the latter is focused on biochemical processes.

To mitigate this problem, I started creating to-do lists. Having a clear path to follow makes it much easier to stay on the course. No doubt, there are various causes of procrastination, and what works for one individual may not work for another. But to-do lists can be a valuable ally for many people.

I'd like to share my experience on how I've managed to organize my time better.

General idea

I started with simple notes in Nextcloud, placing a literal list of tasks for each day. The same can be done in any text editor, be it GNU nano or Notepad. For example:

• Clean the kitchen
• Meditate
• Study math: complete one unit and pass exercises
• Udemy: watch videos about a single concept, complete relevant exercises
• Develop a feature: generate an RSS feed for my blog

It's important not to make the list too long. It should be possible to finish all tasks in one day. Otherwise, constant frustration caused by discontent with our inability to clean the list and follow the plan might push us away from making plans altogether. Moreover, if we put too many items on the list, we might start picking up easier and more joyous activities instead of important ones.

Goals should be clear. Look at these three lines:

• Study math: complete one unit and pass exercises
• Udemy: watch videos about a single concept, complete relevant exercises
• Develop a feature: generate an RSS feed for my blog

And compare them to these:

• Study math
• Watch videos on Udemy
• Work on my blog

For how long should I study math? How many videos on Udemy are enough? What kind of work do I need to do with my blog, what am I trying to achieve? I can't achieve targets if there are no targets! My tired brain can always say: "Okay, that's enough, let's watch YouTube instead."

Perhaps a reader, who is working in IT, is familiar with these ideas. In software development, we also plan tasks, usually for a week or two ahead, and break big things into smaller units of work. This realization induced me to configure a Kanban board and use it as a to-do list.

Kanboard

I deployed Kanboard, a great open-source tool. Its web-interface is simple and fast, it can work with an SQLite database, making it lightweight.

This may sound like hammering nails with a screwdriver, but in fact, software solutions specialized in to-do lists come with the support of Kanban boards! Take a look at Vikunja:

In essence, Kanban is a system that helps organize work. We have a backlog of tasks, we prioritize and plan them, we take them in progress, and complete them. All of this is as true for to-do lists as for a factory or an IT-company.

Kanban's key feature, the Work In Progress (WIP) limit, is helpful in personal life too. Without any limits, the "in progress" column can grow over time and turn into another backlog.

1. We start working on Item #1.
2. We get stuck or distracted.
3. We decide to take Item #2.
4. We don't finish it again for any reason.
5. We repeat steps above over and over.

However, if we limit ourselves to N items in progress, we're incentivized to finish existing tasks to be able to take new ones. I think this is a fantastic feature of Kanban and is the reason why I prefer it over Scrum.

Kanban is not strict. There's no rule saying that N should be equal to 1, 3, or any other number. For myself, I find WIP=2 to be the optimal value. There's always room for an item I'm currently focused on, but that also leaves a spot if something urgent pops up.

The usage of specialized software makes it easier to address concerns discussed in the Notes section. Items that would be nice to do and items that have to be done first are separated thanks to the "backlog" and "to do" columns. Tasks in the backlog can be prioritized to plan the most valuable activities first.

Links between tasks help visualize the hierarchy of work items. If I need to accomplish Z, but I see that it's blocked by Y, which is itself blocked by X, then it's obvious where to start - with X. Moreover, if Z has a definitive deadline, I can plan X and Y accordingly.

We can even analyze lead time and other data to maximize our efficiency! Not that I manage my life that meticulously.

Conclusion

Kanban is a fantastic framework for to-do lists. Software like Kanboard comes with a set of tools to effectively organize items and provide enough flexibility to adjust to your needs. By no means I do argue that it is the best choice. You may find something more suitable for your requirements. Yet, I'm fully satisfied with it.

I suggest giving to-do lists a try. You can start with a simple text-based list like I did. With the right approach, it can be very helpful.