What is a Kanban board?

A Kanban Board is a tool used to help visualize tasks. The board shows every task and what the current status (i.e not started, in progress, complete) of each task is in such a way that it is easy to see what the status of a given task is.

Kanban boards are typically used in agile software development process such as Scrum and Kanban.

Here is a picture of what a kanban board may look like (Image taken from the kanban board Wikipedia page)

Why I am using a Kanban Board

While learning about agile software development processes I came across Kanban & Kanban Boards. I read about the benfits of using a Kanban Board and among them was that they may help increase productivity, so I adapted versions of Kanban Boards I found online to work for me in organising my tasks as a student.

What my Kanban Board looks like

My board started out with just three columns, To Do, In Progress and Completed. As I attempted to use the board to track my tasks, I decided to try out some extra columns that I felt were missing. For example, sometimes I may be finished working on a task but want to review it in the future, so I added a 'Review' Status Column as this would be more appropriate than 'Completed' for tasks I want to revisit in the future.

Here is a screenshot of my Kanban Board (the tasks have been blurred out):

Benefits I've Noticed

Here are a list of the benefits I've noticed from using a Kanban Board to track my tasks as a student:

• Never forget about tasks. Everything I need to do gets added into my Kanban Board, nothing gets forgotten about!

• Increased motivation to complete tasks. Moving the tasks from in progress to completed is very satisfying

• Spending less time wondering what I should work on. I just look in my next up or in progress column

How To Create Your Own Board

There are a lot of different online web applications to let you create your own Kanban Board. I am using Notion because it offers extra features on top on the Kanban Board. Other online options include Trello and KanbanFlow.

Another option is to create a physical Kanban Board using a whiteboard and/or Post-It notes.