How we effectively manage our couple’s projects using kanban

Since May this year, I’ve had a wedding ring at my finger. This means that my life has changed a lot. Not on a day to day basis because my partner and I have been living together for for years already, but because marriage gave a new flavour to our relationship, which is now tainted with a greater sense of… long term. Hence we started to speak more openly and in more details about our long term projects, aspirations, hopes, etc. Even though that exercise of speaking to each other was highly valuable, we were determined not let those ideas evaporate and our aspirations remain only a dream. That is how our Kanban adventure started.

Being a management consultant (I am sure you got that at this stage J), and working with the Agile principles on a daily basis, I was convinced for a while that several of those principles would be relevant in a household. Therefore I seized the opportunity that was in front of me: I bought a white board, some sticky notes, a few markers, and we made the decision to try and make all those common projects a reality using a Kanban.

And here is our Masterpiece:

Our masterpiece

I am almost a bit emotional when I look at it as it reminds me of all the knowledge, ideas, thinking and effort we put into it.

It doesn’t look like much, but I promise you there is much more than you imagine.

What is a Kanban? (reminder)

Just a short reminder on what a Kanban is. It means signboard in Japanese, and this is what it is: a board divided into multiple columns, each representing an activity of a sequential process. And when there is a task to do, it starts on the left of the Kanban and goes through all the board towards the right, until the final column (usually Done). Therefore, a kanban is a bit of a map of your work to and in progress.

Kanbans are at the centre of the lean approach aiming to deliver things with the minimum waste and to foster continuous improvement. If you want to know more on Kanban, please read my article about the various techniques of managing projects.

But, in brief, here are the principles of Kanban:

• It is a tool to visualise the work to do and in progress by moving little cards across the board to represent their status
• It is not fixed. It is a flexible tool, adaptable to any situation, and improvable over time
• It is used to limit the work in progress. You shouldn’t put more than x tasks in the “in progress” column (you defined the number) in order to avoid bottlenecks and to keep the focus on what has been started

That’s about it really… and believe me, its simplicity makes its strength!

How is our Kanban structured?

This is how our Kanban is structured today (I insist on the TODAY as it hasn’t been like this since the beginning and it is unlikely to remain exactly like this forever):

The kanban’s structure

Vertically:

Our kanban columns reflect our own working process

1. The gold mine – this is the name we gave to our backlog. Well honestly we didn’t like backlog (it’s still written at the top but we don’t use it any more). It reminded us of work and changing the name was a way for us to get more ownership out of new system. It was important for us to label it with a phrase that was reflecting all the positive side of our projects. The gold mine contains a full high level backlog for the topic in scope, which means that it fixes the ultimate end of the project as we have it in our mind today. Each yellow post-it represents an item in the backlog, something we’ll have to do in order to fulfill our dream.
2. Projects – This column contains only one backlog item that we prioritised and we want to deliver. It is short term enough to give us tangible benefits to look for, but long-term enough to keep us busy for a week or two. We created it because we felt initially that were was a layer missing between our ultimate purpose and day to day tasks. We needed something in the middle to drive us and give us the feeling that we are always moving towards tangible success. Now, this layer actually constitutes the unit of our gold mine.
3. To-do – This is the prioritised project, broken down into actionable tasks. Our project (yellow post-it) is still too big to represent one action on the Kanban. It would stay forever in the “in progress” column and that would demotivate us. Plus we would have to add lots on details on the post it in order to explain what we need to do to complete it. Therefore, our solution was to break it down into smaller actions, each fixed on a smaller sticky note.
4. Coming – The prioritised actions for the next day. We are only allowed to pull into In progress any of the actions that is in this column. We are usually a bit more loose and open during the week-end on this one, and a bit stricter during the work week.
5. Actions – In Progress – Represented with the two-arrow symbol, this column contains all the tasks that have been initiated, and that we are still able to progress forward. This is our pure work in progress
6. Actions – stuck – Represented by a little forbidden symbol, it gathers tasks that cannot be progressed without input from an external source. It does not depend on us to move forward
7. Happy – ? – This is our test column, and I personally think this is one of the most important one. When we’re done with something but are waiting for the result to be achieved, that’s where we put the task. I think that this gap between “I’m done” and “the task is over” is a major problem in to-do lists, but something that can be fixed easily with Kanbans.
8. Happy – Happy – A smiley face, representing the task as completed and the result achieved. We let our achieved output pile-up until our weekly meeting

Horizontally:

Our theme are formulated in a positive way, so that we always remember why and to which purpose we do things

Swimlanes represent themes. There are multiple projects that my wife and I are managing simultaneously, and therefore we have a sub gold mine for each of them. However, in the To do column, each project is prioritised with an indicative priority order, reflecting which one is our current priority overall. For example, as we are getting closer to Christmas, the project related to Family & Friends was the top priority. However, in the new year, it is very likely that we are going to prioritise some more personal stuff for a while as this period is usually pretty quiet.

How does our Kanban work?

The flow of our kanban

Project initiation:

1. We build the backlog, or gold mine (more on that later…)

Weekly:

1. We move items from the gold mine to projects when we want to work on the next project in line (always the most important / obvious) – this is the item we are going to work on for the next couple of weeks or so
2. We break down this project into actionable tasks (usually those tasks represent up to 1 hour of work roughly)

Project broken down into tasks

We prioritise the projects from 1 to 5 based on the overall importance

Priorities are stated, from 1 to 5.

We remove the Happy tasks and acknowledge our output

Daily:

1. We move the tasks from To-do to Coming to highlight the ones requiring action in priority
2. We highlight the fast track actions with a little sticker – reflecting urgent & important actions

Fast track action – to be completed as a matter of priority

Ongoing

1. We move them through In progress, stuck, ? and happy based on achievements

Also, for time-sensitive actions that need to be actioned at a certain point in time (eg check-in on a flight), we usually put them into our calendar until they need to be actioned, then we put it on our Kanban with a fast track sticker.

For time sensitive actions that can be performed at any time, we put them on our board and write the due date on the card.

Our Kanban itself is a couple’s project

Our Kanban and the system it supports are still very young (c. 2-month old), and there are another thousand ways we can improve it in the future. However, both my wife and I acknowledge that it does work, and that this is the right tool for us. Why?

Simple because it is a simple tool, with very few rules, and which is open to be improved and adjusted in many ways so that it can fit the personality and the needs of the people using it. My wife was new to Agile and Kanban until I brought them home a few months ago. And very quickly, she adopted it, and made a lot of suggestions in order to adapt it to make it friendlier for her and for us. For example, she had the idea of removing the business jargon and turn it into a more personal and positive one. She also had the idea of putting little stickers to highlight the fast track tasks etc. This is one of the most powerful strengths of Kanban: it includes everybody, give a place to everybody working with it.

Our Kanban is a bit of a project in itself for us, something that belongs to us, that we are proud of, and that we are determined to develop over time. It contains most of our aspirations together, and is the only place that does so, that’s why we are much dedicated to take care of it.

Get your household under control in 6 simple steps and less than 15 minutes

This article is a follow-up on a first article describing how I manage my home’s recurring tasks effectively and more importantly effortlessly.

Following on my previous post about how my wife and I managed to get our household under control, I wanted to share with you a little guide on how to get started to do the same in just a few steps. I also made sure that my methods were adaptable to the different types of home settings, such as homes where there is no white board, small flats etc.

1. If you don’t have a white board but have space in your flat/house

If you don’t have a white board, I recommend you buy one if you plan to be more ambitious in the way you manage not only your household’s tasks, but also the projects for you, your partner, and/or your family. But absolutely no worries, don’t forget that we are… AGILE! And with the Agile mindset, we don’t wait til later to get started.

Here, our assumption is that you don’t have a white board yet, however you have some space available in your home, like on a wall, or on the fridge.

All you need is:

• Sticky notes – 2 different sizes

• Markers

• Nice to have : blu tack

I know it’s a bit ugly…

And that’s it!

Step 1: On the bigger post-it notes, write all the recurring tasks you need to do in your household – one post it for one task (5′)

Don’t step more than five minutes on it, you can add any other task at a later stage any time.

Write all your home’s recurring tasks (here just a sample)

Step 2: Order them roughly from the most frequent to the least frequent (3′)

Just to give you a sense of order: identify the most recurring tasks in an easier way

Order from the most to the least frequent

Step 3: Place them on the wall or on the fridge in the same order. Leave space next to each sticky note (3′)

I like the idea of the fridge, because it is a location that it fairly central, visible by all, and which grabs the attention when it comes to home management (many people put their shopping list on the fridge for instance). Also, you are not taking the risk of putting a stain on the wall if you work on your fridge.

Put the notes on your fridge (or wall)

You are now ready!

Step 4: Choose the tasks you want to perform the day after and place smaller sticky notes next to them (1′)

Imagine that doing those tasks altogether should take between 30′ and 1h MAX. These are the tasks you committed to do tomorrow. No more, no less. Therefore, when you come back from work tomorrow, look at your notes and just do the tasks in an automated way. It is important not to think but just act. The previous version of you was much more enlightened than the one you are when you are back from work.

Add small sticky notes next to the tasks you commit to deliver tomorrow. Don’t be too ambitious! Better to have a little done than a lot undone

Step 5: Every time a task is done, tick it on the smaller sticky note (1′)

Have another look at my first article about how I manage recurring tasks to understand the power of tickboxes and why the brain likes them. Be careful to remove the note from the wall before ticking it as it may stain the wall.

On D-Day, every time a task is done, tick the corresponding box

Step 6: Repeat step 4 for the day after, and again every day (1′)

Step four takes less than one minute to do

The next day, start again. No need to remove the boxes from the day before – it tells you what was done recently and what wasn’t.

2. If you have a white board

The steps are exactly the same as previously, except for steps 4 and 5: Instead of putting smaller sticky notes next to the bigger ones, you can just draw a tickbox next to the tasks you commit to perform. And you just have to tick that box once you are done with your activities. In summary, the process looks like this:

Step 1: On the bigger post-it notes, write all the recurring tasks you need to do in your household – one post it for one task (5′)

Step 2:
Order them roughly from the most frequent to the least frequent (3′)

Step 3: Place them on the board in the same order. Leave space next to each sticky note

Step 4: Choose the tasks you commit to do tomorrow and draw tickboxes next to them with the marker

On the board, just draw tickboxes for the next day with a marker

Step 5: Every time a task is done, tick the box with the marker directly on the board

Tick the boxes when the tasks are done

Step 6: Repeat step 4 for the day after, and again every day

Tip: You don’t need to erase the previous tickboxes from the week – leaving them on the wall or the board helps you visualise which ones have already been performed earlier in the week and the ones not done yet.

Repeat the same the day after

1. If you have no white board and no space
   

No need to panic J For students and urban people in general, it is more challenging to find place in the flat or in the house in order to implement the little system I just describes. In this case, there are other solutions. Of course, feel free to be creative and find your own setting. Don’t forget that the most important thing is to find a system that suits you, your life, your personality, and you needs. Therefore, the solution below is just an example of what you could do if space (even on the fridge) was an issue. I am not using it, but I imagine it working just fine as it is in line with the same principles as described above.

Step 1 and 2 don’t change, you just need smaller versions of the sticky notes (feel free to split them into smaller pieces)

Step 3: Place them on the left side of a note book

Place the notes on the left side of a notepad or a note book

Step 4: Choose the tasks you commit to do tomorrow and draw tickboxes next to them with the marker

Step 5: Every time a task is done, tick the box with the marker directly on the notebook

Draw and tick boxes every day

Step 6: Repeat step 4 for the day after, and again every day

The column the most on the right hand side is the one referring to the next day. The only drawback is that when you come to the end of the page, you need to move the notes to another page, which accounts for another 5′ every week or so. But, as mentioned above, feel free to adjust the system to find something that suits you better over time

1. Continuous improvement
   

Don’t forget, this article is about getting STARTED. It doesn’t mean that the system will remain the same forever. On the contrary, it is likely to change, and it is a good thing. Just a few tips to manage the ongoing change on your system:

Tip 1: Apply the system as it is for one week abiding by the rules precisely (if you afford not to respect your own system from the beginning, it is unlikely to be effective. It is better to apply it strictly and identify the remaining areas of pain)

Tip 2: Process only one change at a time (your brain is unlikely to follow if you process too many changes at once and the risk is for you to “lose” your system as you just can’t follow. I know, this one is pretty simple, but it is still a good tip to remember as we are about to work with Kanbans)

Tip 3: Visualise the benefits once in a while (always important to remember that we do that for a reason)

Don’t forget that the ultimate purpose of getting your household under control is to free more time in order you to do things that are important for you.

How to manage your household’s boring tasks effectively and effortlessly with a simple system?

The first challenge for my wife and I was to take control of those endless and boring tasks that never stop : chores. We both quickly identified them as the first obstacle in our way to get more freedom in our lives, as they take a significant amount of time, particularly on week-end. When not being taken care of, they build-up, and more importantly they are in essence annoying : there is very little value and self-fulfilment in executing them. As a consequence, they often generate frustration.

The solution to the chores problem, everybody already knows it, including us : we need to do a little bit of them every day. But what little bit ? As I come back home, after a long day of work and a long commute, the last thing I want to do is to think about which boring stuff I should do first. I am likely to be overwhelmed by everything that has to be done, therefore the only thing I want to do is just to give up straight away and run to either my phone (procrastination !) or my X-box and forget about them. In both cases, we can’t expect a very productive output.

However, in not even a couple of weeks, my wife and I came-up with a very simple and effective system to manage chores, that works perfectly in our household. This system works because :

• The tasks are getting done and dishes don’t pile-up on our sink
• It literally takes less than ONE minute per day to « manage » this system
• Doing those tasks is not even boring any more

How did we do that ?

1. Commit on what you plan to do a day ahead

When it comes to do boring stuff, there is rarely action without commitment. With chores, action doesn’t have to be long, just long enough to get the most important stuff done (most important = Agile) every day.

The way we do it in our household is simple : every night, before going to bed, we gather for 1 minute in front of our white board and ask ourselves what are the most important tasks we need to do the day after. Tasks are ordered grossly on the lower section of the board from the most frequent – on the left, such as preparing the dinner, do the washing-up, empty and fill the dishwasher – to the least frequent – on the right, roughly once a week, such as buying the groceries online. And every night, in barely 30 seconds, we agree on the tasks for the next day by drawing a little square next to the ones we selected.

Each sticky note represents a recurring task

Both of us, in front of the board, agree on the actions that sound reasonable and realistic for ourselves to do the day after. If we plan to go home early, we naturally put a bit more. If we plan to go out and come back late, we barely put anything. The benchmark that we have in mind for a normal day is about 30’ to spend on the recurring stuff. Why 30’ ?

• Because it equates to c. 1h per day together, which is a ‘round’ figure, suming to 5 hours for the work week. And 5 hours for the work week, that sounds way enough to do what needs to be done
• 30’ sounds reasonable, like ‘not too much’, so that we can have the impression to actually do stuff without ruining our evening. 30’ is just… decent !

2. Let the « thinking you » from the day before be the master of the game

Now, the day after, when you come from home after a long and tiring day, that’s the moment when the magic of the white board operates : it tells us what need to do.

No need to think, no need to process any information, we just have to trust the « thinking us » from the night before, who perfectly thought through what was the most important things to do, and follow their lead, thanks to the white board, which captured this thinking and is now giving it back to the « present us » in the most visual and simple way.

It takes only a few seconds to process the information from the white board, and our brains are completely relieved of any stressful considerations such as « what do I need to do now ».

One condition though is to make our white board visible, ie in a location where we can’t miss it. It is exposed, therefore it is much easier to rely on it as we don’t even have to make the effort to have a look at it.

Making the system pretty much effortless and natural is very important to make it work.

3. Leverage the power of tickboxes

As mentioned above, every night we just draw a little square in front of each task that we identified as being the most important ones for the day after. This square is actually a tickbox, that just needs to be ticked once the task is performed.

Ticking boxes makes your brain happy and calm

I’m sure you’re tempted to laugh, but please do NOT underestimate the power of tickboxes. Tickboxes make your brain happy, because your brain loves acknowledging that something is complete and is not pending, because it relieves it from the pressure to have to keep thinking about this item. Unidentified and undone things generate stress and anxiety in mind and body. Ticking boxes removes this source of stress and completely relieves the ming.

Come on, don’t you enjoy ticking the boxes in your to-do list at work when you’re done with something ?

This simple system brings peace in the mind because it relies on two characteristics, that are proven to generate effectiveness in any environment :

• Visualisation of the work to do
• Acknowledgement of the completion of the tasks

This combination makes the different between peace and stress, effectiveness and procrastination, productivity and waste of time. And between you and me, ticking boxes to recognise that boring stuff is over does generate satisfaction.

4. Spend time together to make it more enjoyable

My wife and I try to make the chores less of a pain for us by doing them together and taking advantage of this time together to talk about our respective days. You know, like just speak to each other, as couples do ! Is there any better moment to do so than when we are both lightly busy doing some almost automated activities? We decided to turn that « annoying » time into a quality moment for ourselves.

It is a mistake to think that quality time together is spent in a restaurant or any other fancy place. It is usually in the most obvious places that we spend the best moments with our relatives. For us, doing our minimal chores every day together is a bit like our depressurization chamber, where we make the move in our mind from work to home.

Again the magic operates : to us, this time is not so much about « doing chores », but more about « telling each other about our respective days ».

5. Visualise the benefits

How could the following not sound appealing :

• A home that is neat pretty much all the time, which is much more enjoyable on a daily basis
• There is only very little to do when the week-end comes, which is the first sign of… freedom. Now we actually have more time to plan and do some proper activities we like
• I have the comfort to know that every day I have dedicated quality time to spend with my wife to speak about anything and everything
• It generates a virtuous cycle : As everything is properly maintained and taken care of, they are much less difficult to deal with on an ongoing basis :
  • Laundries are structurally smaller (= less time to spend on this sh***, and less time spent on ironing as well)
  • The flat is generally tidier and cleaner (= less long to clean this time)
• It costs us only less than one minute of planning per day

But the biggest benefit from far is that taking our recurring tasks under control started to free more time to my wife and I. And we can allocate this new time available to things that really matter to us, the projects that we want to carry out together. And this is definitely the major takeway from this post : we have the feeling that we are taking our life under control because we are actually making time for ourselves, in order to work on our life projects. And this is priceless…

Why your home is meant to be Agile (2/2: pieces of evidence)

The Agile principles (mentioned in the first part of the article here) are absolutely relevant in a household, from multiple perspectives:

• to manage all the recurring things to do
• to move forward the household’s projects
• to keep everybody happy

Let me tell you how the Agile principles fit into your home

Action is superior to non-action : stop delaying your projects

The Agile approach encourages us to get started even when not all the information is available. That’s because it is usually impossible or too costly to obtain all the information without actually having started the actual work, as a lot of new information pops-up along the journey. At work, sooner or later, you usually end-up getting started, because waiting has a cost for the business, which is not sustainable.

At home, though, the cost of not doing something is different, as you are the only one to bear this cost : if you don’t start, you don’t get the benefits related to the goal that you would like to achieve. It’s an opportunity cost more than a tangible cost. And this opportunity does not pressurises us enough to convince us to get started.

For example, a few months ago, I wanted to re-build our household’s filing system. A massive task, as it contains all the paperwork for my wife and I (and our cat) for all areas: housing, car, banks, insurances, utilities, education, purchases and subscriptions receipts and invoices, warranties, various guides and manuals, employment information, but also letters and cards we receive, memories etc. well to sum-up: a lot of stuff. I knew, before even starting, that it would be a long task, maybe 10 hours in total. In my mind I had a high level idea on how I wanted the new system to be, but every time I was about to start, I was pulling back in front of the size of the task – What am I going to do with this specific item? With that one? Well… I certainly need to think about it a bit more. Maybe if I do a spreadsheet?

That’s how it all got delayed for another few weeks (all the more that I didn’t do the spreadsheet)

I had not understood the fact that all my ideas would come into place if I was just starting! They would become clearer, stronger, and richer, even though they’d certainly be a bit different from what they were in the first place.

Getting on helps clarify and substantiate ideas, no matter good or bad ones. And as you get on, you get new ideas, even better than the first ones. And no matter how long you spend on thinking about your approach in the first place, it’s often after starting that you get the best ideas. And that’s why action is superior to inaction. And in a household, it’s an absolute truth, because you are the only one accountable to yourself on what you do.

Real progress is made step-by-step, not in one shot.

As we saw on the article about time management, we only got a couple of hours per day to spend on our personal stuff (taking my life as a benchmark). With only a couple of hours per day, you’re never going to make a revolution in your personal life on one day: you just don’t have enough time!

And to be honest, when it comes to your dreams and passions, that may be a good thing: spending 10 hours a day on something you love is the best way to be disgusted from it within a few weeks or months.

What you want is working your way towards that objective in a sustainable way, without losing your sanity and your motivation. And that can be achieved only through the step by step approach: what is the natural next step in your journey to reach your dream, and what can you do today to reach that step?

Whatever is your personal project you want to work on in your free time, if you try to reach the end goal only every day, or even a few steps ahead, you’re gonna lose faith in yourself and in something that is important to you. Whereas identifying and working on the next step will provide satisfying result and keep up your motivation to go on. And your end goal will become more and more achievable every day, without you even realising.

You can do anything but not everything

Clean the house, Get a new filing system, tidy-up the admin stuff, go to the hairdresser, call your relatives, book your next holidays, practice the violin, go for a beer with a friend, send greeting cards for the new year, write a post for your blog, finish yout book, decorate the Christmas tree, iron your shirts, prepare the dinner, play some football etc

And… only a few hours every day to do all of that.

Option1: You can rush and and do everything fast and badly: The likely result is that you won’t even do everything, and you will be frustrated with the poor quality of the stuff and with the fact you still have things on your plate. Rushing will also have made you stressed. In terms of output, most things will have to be re-worked soon anyway as it was badly executed. It’s a clear lose-lose situation.

Option2: You prioritise:

1. Call your family
2. Prepare Christmas tree
3. Writing on blog
4. Send greeting cards

How much you do in one day doesn’t matter, because you will have done the most important stuff first. And what is not done tonight will be done the day after, if nothing more important came at the top of the list in the meantime. That’s a win-win: you get the important stuff done and you take satisfaction out of the benefits of what you achieved. Also, you are not stressed because you spent the exact effort and focused required on each time and you didn’t try to fit more in your schedule than the time you actually had. It’s a clear winner.

In your household, this exercise is all the more important that priorities are always conflicting: what you have to do (chores etc), what is important for your couple (spending time together, plan common projects), and what is important for yourself (personal projects). And a balance is found between those three components only by constantly working on defining the priorities.

The most important item comes first: don’t leave what matters for the next week-end

When it comes to personal life, importance matters more than urgency. Why? Because missing something important may cost you, even if it’s not so urgent. However, missing something urgent that is not important doesn’t really matter. Very often, important things are not that urgent, because they are important to you, not intrinsically. Therefore, it is critical to make time for them.

At work, I put the most important stuff first in order to give the most value to my client as soon as possible. At home, I try to put the most important stuff first in order to give myself and my household the most value: writing on my blog, spending quality time with my wife. This is more important than ironing my shirts, right?

Ok, we all have a lot of have to’s in our lives, and this is absolutely normal. But too often we turn into have to’s things are rather could do’s, but we just don’t have the courage to question them and just remove them from our schedule. Especially our jobs contain a lot of could do that we consider as have to’s, and it ultimately takes a lot out of our personal time.

Putting what is important to you at the centre of your have to’s and subsequently putting them at the top of your to-do list is a critical step towards achieve more in your personal lives.

Short cycles of work allow continuous improvement

This is something that many people do at work but don’t at home, whereas it is usually recognised as one of the best moments of a work week (for a working team): the weekly team meeting. You congratulate each other on the job done, you agree on the next steps, and you discuss what we could do differently from now on. Simple, logical, and easy.

At home, couple and then married life introduce a dynamic of team in your household – sort of. And working together on a same goal because you love each other doesn’t mean that you are gonna work easily with each other or in the most productive way. That’s why introducing the idea of having regular sessions to discuss, catch-up, share feelings, concerns and ideas about your life together may not be a bad thing at all.

When you love each other, it seems so obvious that you know each other that sometimes you actually forget to talk to each other. I mean talk properly, and open-up a bit to the other. As a consequence, it is a good thing to have as a last resort some pre-planned time in order to discuss how life projects are getting on and if there is anything you could or should change.

In the household, improving is not so important from the perspective of achieving more, but it is critical in order to feel happy at home with each other.

Priorities can change, it’s no big deal

Imagine that you had planned to clean the house before dealing with your invoices, but actually you realised that you absolutely have to pay your bills by midnight, otherwise you’ll have to pay an extra fee… But it bothers you to change your plan because… that’s what you planned…!

Honestly, who cares?

Your job = their priorities (your manager, your client, your shareholders etc)

Your life = your priorities, full stop.

Priorities change because life moves on. The approach is called Agile, therefore if we are stubborn without any rational reason, we’re not gonna make it through.There is no big deal to change a plan, if the revised one is in your best interest. Don’t forget that in your personal life, only your and your household’s interests only matter.

Pull, don’t push: the secret to avoid stress at home

Limiting your Work in progress is a critical success factor in any industry, but it is also highly relevant at home. As all of your tasks are prioritised based on the degree of importance, you just move on to the next one once you are done with the one currently in your plate.

What is time-dependent is in your calendar, and you don’t have to worry about it. The rest (=time neutral tasks) is just prioritised, the only thing you have to commit on is not to move to the next one until you’re done with what you’re doing. And at home, it is important because as I mentioned earlier, priorities conflict: personal projects, house projects, stuff to do, and I can’t imagine with kids on top of that.

It is very tempting to take on everything at the same time in order to keep everyone happy and have the feeling that all the areas of your life make progress. But that is an illusion, because the best way to keep everyone happy, included ourselves, is to spend the effort, attention and focus that a task requires in order to make it valuable. No more, no less.

Avoiding multi-tasking avoids stress and increase the quality of the output, and it increases the degree of enjoyment of doing that single task. No doubt it will benefit to yourselves and to the people around you.

Conclusion:

For all the reasons stated above, and also because my wife and I have many projects in life we are trying to move forward despite both working full time, we decided to build, step by step (we haven’t forgotten the lesson…), an Agile household.

And you, are you ready?

What work taught me about the value of time (2/2)

This article is the second part of a longer one about time management. You can find the first part here

 

Lesson Two: the pennies are accurate, but the billions are wrong

What most people have wrong about time is that they are trying to gain two or three minutes here and there instead on focusing on the structural time-consuming areas of their lives. I am always amazed how people convince themselves how productive they are because they have a little trick to manage their emails efficiently, tidy their cupboards like this or like that, the right app to manage their to-do list, use several colours on their calendars etc. But they often don’t realise that they are wasting ten times as much time in other areas.

The office is full of highly time consuming and unproductive tasks. They even occupy sometimes more than 80% of our work. In three words: Powerpoint, e-mails and meetings.

Colouring powerpoint decks? Yes

Millions of pending e-mails? Yes

Meetings all day long? Yes

Value of the time spent on  all of that? … (silence that means « none » or « very little »)

We say in French that in the accounting field, “the pennies are accurate, but the billions are wrong”. It is exactly the same thing about time. We focus on the few minutes lost here and there and try to be more productive, but we don’t want to admit that most of our work activities taking most of our time are actually of low value. The remedy to such situation is to completely re-consider the way we approach work by re-focusing on the important stuff and leave til later or even undone the least important tasks. Calling back the important client, attending only the important meeting with the important stakeholders (=the ones making decisions) etc.

At home, this is no different. Taking the time to perform the important tasks is the beginning of freedom, as this is beginning of making progress on the projects that matter. Whatever the place, work or home, making time for the important things is maybe the most critical success (work) or happiness (home) factor, as it consists of giving ourselves the control over what is in our hands.

On the other side, gaining time, which consists of conquering time through little organisational tricks, can only be a tactical fix. It is useful to gain a few minutes here and there, but it is not suitable to mitigate issues with structural time allocation such as focusing on the least important stuff. In short, gaining time is only a relevant effort when the fundamentals are right. If I was going back home at 10pm every night, would I want to bother buying a new brush to make the washing-up in 5′ instead of 10′ ? Certainly not. However, I may want to re-consider my working hours.

This is a reality that I realised only very recently in my own life : if my personal life matters to me, and it does, then I need to make more time for it.

I always try to leave work at a decent time, irrespective of my “workload”. Firstly because I decided that I should not be the slave of work, but work should adapt to my life. Secondly, because I realised it was actually true – we can take control of our work! I never achieved more output than since the day I stopped working beyond 6pm almost every day. Why? Because when I tell myself “I’m here til 6pm, so we need to get that project going within this timeframe”, I genuinely work from the perspective of leaving at 6pm, and what matters most gets done on time. This is a positive pressure to perform. Under the assumption that I would instead tell myself “It’s all going to be fine, I will spend all the time it needs to make this project successful anyway”, it would be completely different, as I could afford doing useless powerpoint decks, nice slides,  nice reports and using other consultants rubbish tools that just waste a hell of time. In the end, II would have to work twice as much and fast at the end of the project for a very uncertain result.

The conflict betwen professional and personal lives does not exist. A balance between both is best enabler for us to perform in both at our best. In most case, work will tend to grow on the personal time, therefore consciously taking time for ourselves becomes the answer.

 

Lesson 3 : « I don’t have the time » actually means « I am not taking the time »

The liberal credo says: “you’re the only judge of how well you spend your time”. So basically, if you want to spend all your time working, you can, that’s your choice. On your phone? Your choice. On League of Legends? Your choice. Sleeping? Your choice. Drinking? Your choice (but be careful).

All of that is absolutely your choice, only your choice. Therefore, in that context, and especially as we want to be a very much empowered person, it is inappropriate to constantly put forward the eternal and most commonly excuse of all when it comes to pushing back on stuff we are offered: “Sorry but I don’t have time”.

Again, let’s imagine such situation in the office. My manager is telling me: “Can you plan out your work for the next month, make sure it’s aligned to the project plan, and give it to me by COP tomorrow?”.

Me:  « Sorry but I don’t have time at the moment »

Then what happens ? The manager will either say « Why ? What are you working on ? » and then determine whether I should prioritise the task he just gave me over the one I am working on. [Little separate note for all the bankers reading my blog : this post assumes that we are referring to a normal job, with relatively standard working hours. It does not assume that days are normally extensible to 17 or 18 hours of work per day]. What matters is the priority of what we do. We got quite a fixed amount of time to spend on producing output during the day, the question is : what should be done first and foremost ? So that what is left out at the end of the day is the stuff which does not matter as much (eg. the colleague – you know the one you don’t really like – who asked for some help).

In the private space, things are no different, except that it is impolite to ask somebody why he or she believes that the other stuff left they have to do is more important than what you are offering them now. But the conclusion remains the same, ie. The other person thinks that he or she is the « stuff left out at the end that doesn’t really matter ». And the reality is that it is true. « I don’t have time » doesn’t mean « I already have something planned », it means « there are other more important things than yours that I have to do ». Usually, this more important thing to do is work, and it is commonly accepted that work to do is non arguable.

However, it completely contradicts the liberal credo, that is supposed to make me a very free person : « you’re the only judge of how you allocate your time ». Which means that when I cross the line of what are reasonable working hours, I am the only one responsible for what happens to me. Therefore, if I don’t have time, it means either option of the following :

1. I am not that much of a free person as I think, and it seems that I am unable to take the time for others or myself because I am too dependent of my work.
2. I am just not interested in what the other person is suggesting and I don’t want to take the time for that

The purpose of this blog is not re-visit the way I manage the relationships with my relatives, so I won’t make any judgemental comment about the option two. But option 1 is interesting because in this case I actually believe that I don’t have time because of adverse circumstances. The more I say that I don’t have the time, the more I actually believe it, and the more I think that the whole world is against me and that I have to carry all its heavy sufferings on my shoulders.

This is why acknowledging that instead of « not having the time » I just « am not taking the time » is the real first act of resistance I can do in my life, as it will mean that I am in control of my time, and therefore or my existence. Achieving the latter without the former is a Mission Impossible.

 

Conclusion

The funny thing is that the overarching lesson that work just taught me to about time is the following : to be less dependent on… work !