Q&A with Claire Emerson, Productivity and Self-Management Coach
Find out how Claire has eliminated work anxiety with Personal Kanban
When I read Claire Emerson’s post on Personal Kanban, a tactile task-tracking system, a few years ago, I knew I’d found a new way of managing my work.
I implemented Personal Kanban the next day, and my Kanban board has been the command center of my business ever since. It’s also not a coincidence that my productivity has skyrocketed and my revenue has grown exponentially since then.
My Personal Kanban system is the reason I never miss a deadline.
Today I wanted to personally introduce you to Claire, my Kanban coach. I sat down with her to ask some questions about why this system works so well and how it can help entrepreneurs who are struggling with procrastination or are dealing with mental health issues.
If you’re not familiar with Personal Kanban, read Claire’s post above to get the basics before reading this discussion.
Let’s get to the goods.
Q: Why do you think Personal Kanban works so well, even for people who have failed to implement other project management/life organization systems in the past?
So first, it’s the visual, tactile nature of it. With Kanban, you make your work impossible to ignore. You can't help but see your intentions every time you walk into your workspace.
Then the act of moving tickets around your board makes you a part of the process. You're not just observing some list, and you’re not inside some computer program where you're just clicking around. There's a physical aspect to it. You have to move your tickets around on the board. When you've already got a full board, you're a lot more conscious of what you're doing.
It's also tech-free. So there are no distractions from your device. You're not digging into your computer or your phone every single day before you've had a chance to sit with what you want to do. Because if you open up your phone or your computer, are you really going straight to Asana or Basecamp or whatever you might use to track tasks? I'd say you're probably not. You're probably sifting through email and that pulls you away from what you intended. Not having device distractions is huge.
There is no tech learning curve. There is no fancy stuff that you have to wrap your head around. So its simplicity is really the key, and the way it's designed. You visualize your work and also limit your work in progress — those are the founding principles of Personal Kanban.
With every single ticket you write, you get better at breaking your tasks down. So if you procrastinate a lot, then making things super easy to start is the key. Put as little resistance as possible between where you are right now and what “done” looks like for that task.
A ticket is a post-it on your board, and if it's feeling too big and you see yourself procrastinating, you can ask yourself, “How am I going to break it down?” Create two tickets, create three or four or five if you need to, so that you can work through each little chunk and move those to “Done” on your board.
You don’t have to decide and plan what to do every day. You've already set your tasks for the week, right? That doesn't mean that other stuff's not going to come onto your plate or you finish things and more things will come on. That's not really what it's about. At the start of the week, you set yourself up for success and you trust the process, so you only have to execute. Reducing decision fatigue is just groundbreaking.
The last benefit is that “Done” column. Acknowledging your achievements and seeing just how much you've accomplished is gratifying. It's satisfying at the end of the week.
Q: Can you share a specific example of a complex project you managed using Personal Kanban, and talk about how it helped you?
Every six weeks I shape a new project. So it's usually something related to running, building, or growing my business in some way. And that process yields a to-do list. It doesn't really matter what the project actually involves — everything yields a to-do list.
But if I left that to-do list in my notebook or wherever it's written out, I would never look at it again. Certainly the tasks wouldn't get done in any logical or thoughtful manner. But if you have that list, you can use Kanban to showcase all those jobs to be done and start filtering through them based on what comes first.
My most recent project wasn't really all that complex. It was getting my book ready for beta reading, but there are still several tasks associated with that, and it’s stuff I know I would procrastinate on, because it's creative work.
By putting those tasks up onto my board each week, I made sure I wouldn't miss them and it reminded me constantly of what I intended to do. So it's the follow through of your intentions that Kanban helps with. It has the ability to force your focus, and also to easily visualize what you want to execute.
It doesn't actually matter if the project is complex or simple. You still have to brain-dump a list of everything there is to do, then transfer it to tickets (to your physical board) because that’s where all that magic happens.
“Kanban” is a Japanese word that roughly translates to “signboard.” It's literally a signal to your brain that this is what you've chosen to work on. You still have to execute, but your board is a hard thing to ignore.
Q: What advice would you give to someone who is feeling overwhelmed by their to-do list and is considering trying Personal Kanban for the first time?
My advice is to set up a board, start using it, and see how it goes.
Write down your tasks. Get that stinky to-do list out of you. Then add everything to your board. Start to use it and see how it feels. There is no significant monetary investment. You likely have stuff around already that you could even use. You're not on some 14-day software trial.
Review your board every week. It’s called a retrospective. Look at what you did, look at what you didn't do, and reflect on what stopped you from doing tasks you intended to do. Think about what made it easy to complete some of the tasks and not others.
Then reset your board for a new week. You get to start fresh every week, and there's beauty in that. You're back in control. You're fully capable.
Q: In your experience, what is the most common mistake people make when using Personal Kanban, and how can they avoid it?
You can probably guess my answer. The biggest mistake is trying to make it digital.
If you want to implement Personal Kanban, create a physical board that sits in your office — a white board or bulletin board.
You can even use a manila folder that you can carry around if you work from everywhere — as long as it's a physical, tactile thing.
Other mistakes:
Don’t skip the weekly retrospective. It’s super important. You catch yourself on procrastination tendencies with your reviews, and then you can change your behavior accordingly. You build habits to strengthen areas of weakness.
Make sure your tickets are written so that you know what “done” looks like. What does that look like? Then you do the hard things first.
Q: How has Personal Kanban helped your mental health?
I have a bit of a battle with anxiety, but the one area where I am never anxious — never worried about what is happening — is my work. And that has not always been the case.
When I started self-employment, I was all over the place. Everything was crazy. I didn't know what I was doing. I felt like I couldn't finish things and I didn’t have any systems.
Now, when I come into my workspace, I am good. I am stress-free. That's not to say that work itself doesn't occasionally stress me out if I have a big job or I’ve got deadlines. And don’t get me wrong — I still struggle with anxiety, but it's all personal stuff.
But with Personal Kanban and my work, everything’s there. I know what I'm doing. I know what I've committed myself to doing, and I know that I've got a little bit of slack in my board if I need it. I'm proud to say that one of the areas that I don't have anxiety is in my work. And I attribute that to Kanban, completely. It's the magic pill.
If you want to learn more about how to conquer procrastination and get more done in your life and your business, sign up for Claire’s free course (and be on the lookout for her upcoming book!)