A sanity-saving reminder

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Well, this has been a month.

You will recall that for the first week I was trapped in Key West, the Land That the Cocktail Revival Forgot, getting increasingly antsy about my Large Art Burn Project, Rage Against the Night back home.

Then there was the week back home as I rushed to get Rage finished and built onsite, all the while planning my own packing for the burn. (This includes loading the contents of a 10x10 storage unit into a 15-foot rental truck, for which I had help, thank goodness.)

My theme camp — 3 Old Men — at alchemy 2024

And finally, the burn itself, which was glorious and cold and beautiful — thanks to my campmates for being so wonderful and allowing me to have a less-involved burn — followed by loading up that truck and bringing it all back to Newnan, where I had to unpack/clean/repack/store all that stuff.

ALL OF WHICH IS TO SAY I MAY HAVE BEEN A LITTLE STRESSED OUT THIS MONTH, and that’s the topic of today’s post.

The week that I spent trying to get ready for the burn was driving me nuts: so many tasks, too many to add to my to-do app on my phone and hope to make any sense of it. Every time I thought of one thing, it would remind me of two more.

And then I remembered the obvious solution, you know, the one I recommend in Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy (pp. 17–20) — a physical kanban board. I dug out a piece of foamboard, dragged out the sticky notes and got to work.

(the labels are shopped in for clarity.)

Quick overview: Write down every. single. task. that you have to do on a sticky note. Yes, it’s overwhelming. Those go on the left side, under the heading TO DO. Here’s the important part: Move tasks into the DOING column, but no more than five at a time. That’s it. That’s the system. (There’s also a third column for DONE, but if you’re just using it to sort your brain out for personal projects, that DONE column can be the trashcan.)

I actually got everything on that starter board done except for one unimportant pre-burn task.

This past week I used it to clear off my desk. Yes, that’s how bad it got.

Poor Cecil the Pest™ found it difficult to nap on my desk pre-kanban

Here’s my additional helpful hint. As I started taking stuff off my desk, using the “touch-it-once” paradigm, I sorted all the flotsam and jetsam into the following categories:

  • SHELVE

  • STOW

  • EVALUATE

  • SCHEDULE

  • DISPOSE

YES, EVERY SINGLE BIT OF THIS WAS PILED ON MY DESK.

SHELVE

Just put them back on the shelf where they came from. This is the easy one.

STOW

Find a place for these things. File stuff. Box stuff up. Return them to their usual spot. (Like my passport there, dumped on my desk after flying home from Key West.)

EVALUATE

Why is this on my desk? What on earth can be on that thumb drive or audiocassette? Can I get rid of it? Give it to someone? Donate it to some worthy cause? This pile will be distributed to the other piles as I figure them out.

SCHEDULE

These are items that represent tasks I need to put on the kanban board.

DISPOSE

These are items that I do need to move out of here one way or the other.

Boys and girls, I have to admit that I was pretty embarrassed to have to remind myself of my own advice, but I’m here to tell you that by Cthulhu, it works.

You are visualizing your work, and you can see what’s still-to-do without worrying that you’re forgetting something.

You can start seeing paths forward.

You can do all easy things, or target one hard one. You can break that hard one into multiple steps and kanban those. You can group similar tasks so that you’re not switching mindsets.

You can see what you’re avoiding and get your mental loins girded for the task.

And that’s how I saved my sanity in October 2024. Go check out personalkanban.com.