Planning isn’t for procrastinators.
Procrastinators need pressure to complete their project—time pressure, money pressure, the pressure of a demanding customer.
Procrastinators also need energy. Energy to focus on their task. Energy to ignore the coffee machine, phone calls, texts, cat videos, and other distractions.
When procrastinators have energy and pressure, they don’t need a plan. Shit just gets done.
Without these two things, however, procrastinators find themselves thrashing around like fish in a catch-and-release pond, biting one shiny lure after another, wondering why they can’t make it home.
If you’ve ever procrastinated, you know that fighting it is impossible. But you also know that succumbing to a day of lost work isn’t acceptable.
That’s where Kanban comes in.
Kanban is a Japanese method for getting shit done. In Kanban, you don’t manage your time, you move your tasks through a process.
Think of it like a car manufacturing plan for your mind.
Instead of fighting work due to lack of information, energy, pressure, or motivation, you break down big projects into smaller tasks and add those tasks to a process. The process has multiple stages. Your tasks move through each stage of the process at their own speed until done.
The most simple process is three stages:
| Todo | Working | Done |Draw three columns on a whiteboard or use a free digital tool like @trelloapp.
In the left column (Todo), add a sticky note for every project on your plate. Your challenge is to move each sticky note from the left column to the right column... From Todo to Done, so to speak.
If you’re procrastinating because you lack the energy to work on a certain task—another in the list may excite you. If you don’t have the pressure to work on one task—find a task that does.
With Kanban, you no longer have to worry about time pushing you to work. A task with the right combination of pressure and energy will move through the process with ease.
Will this work for you? Comment below👇
About the Author
Michael Mehlberg
HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE
I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.
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