Kanban TaskerWhat personal kanban is
Kanban began on factory floors as a way to see the work in front of everyone, and software teams made it famous: every piece of work is a card, the cards sit in columns that say where the work stands, and one look at the board shows what is waiting, what is moving and what is stuck.
Personal kanban takes the same board to one person’s work and life. Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry made the idea popular with their book Personal Kanban, and it keeps two rules: make your work visible, and limit your work in progress. A whiteboard and sticky notes follow those rules well, as long as you are standing in front of them. An app follows them wherever you are, and it can do what a whiteboard can’t: sort by due time, remind you, and bring back what repeats every week.
The board: swimlanes, columns and cards
- Swimlanes for the parts of your life, such as work, home, health or a side project: up to ten, each in one of twelve colours. The board shows one swimlane at a time, so even a busy one fits on a phone. On a computer you can also see all swimlanes at once, one under another.
- Columns for where a task stands. The built-in ones are To Do, Work in Progress, Blocked and Done, plus Appointments if you switch appointments on. Add columns of your own, such as “Waiting for parts” or “Ideas”, and rename or reorder them.
- Cards with a title, an optional description, a due time, reminders and, if you like, a repeat rule. Tap a card to edit it, block it, finish it or move it to another column. On a computer you can also drag it.
- Done lists the newest first and shows the last five; you choose how many.
The home screen: the next few tasks, in order
Most boards leave you in front of everything, deciding where to start. Kanban Tasker’s home screen takes that first step for you. It lists your next To Do tasks from every swimlane in order of their due time, three by default (you choose how many). A line separates the tasks due today or already overdue from the later ones.
Pick one and tap Accept. It moves to Work in Progress, and from then on the home screen shows just that task with Finish, Block and Cancel until you are done with it. Blocked tasks and upcoming appointments have their own lists below, so nothing waiting on someone else gets forgotten.
The two rules, built in
- Visible: due times are grey while there is time, orange when the due time is close (within a day by default, and you set how early) and red once it has passed, on the home screen and on the board. The swimlane’s name is shown in its colour.
- Limited: only one task can be in Work in Progress at a time, across all your swimlanes. Read how the WIP limit of one works.
Made for one person’s day
- Quick due times: None, Soon, Later, Today, Tomorrow or In two days, or any date and time. Today, Tomorrow and In two days fall at your end of the day, 17:00 unless you change it.
- Reminders, switched on for the tasks that need them, as long before the due time as you like: an hour before unless you change the default, and half an hour and a day before for appointments.
- Recurring tasks daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, made only when the previous one is done.
- Dictation of a task and its due time, recognised on your phone or by Chrome on your computer and never sent to any service.
- The same tasks everywhere: the Android app and any browser show the same board, and both keep working offline.
How to start
- Make an account at kanban-task.com, with Google or with your e-mail and a password.
- You start with one swimlane and the built-in columns. Add a swimlane for each part of your life.
- Add your tasks with their due times. The home screen sorts them for you.
- If you like, install the Android app and sign in with the same account.
Kanban Tasker is a personal board: each account has its own board, with no shared boards or team features.
Try it with your own tasks
Make an account with Google or your e-mail, add a few tasks with due times, and let the home screen sort them. The Android app shows the same tasks.