A couple years ago, I began an agile training program for teachers with the song, “Time” by Hootie & The Blowfish.

I asked my colleagues then and am asking you now:

There are only 1,440 minutes in a day. How do you manage what you do in that time?

As a high school humanities teacher managing a million and one tasks seemingly all at once while also seeking to grow professionally– implementing the following three agile methods improved my life immensely – at home and at work. In doing each of them, I was able to model successful prioritization, time management, and habits that lead to rapid achievement. In essence – then and now – an agile mindset helps me make the most of those 1,440 minutes in each day. 

Even better — these three approaches are so easy that you can implement them as soon as you finish reading this post!

→ Personal Kanban

Decision fatigue is real! The solution: build a workflow system that eliminates a sizable chunk of your decision making.

Just like our brain subconsciously uses heuristics to reduce the number of decisions we have to make, we can create a more decision-limited environment for ourselves by visualizing our work. In fact, that’s what kanban means; it’s Japanese for  “Kan” 看 meaning sign, and “Ban” 板 meaning a board.

My favorite thing about kanban is that there are only two rules:

1.) visualize your work.

2.) Limit your WIP, or work in progress.

For a short history of kanban, check out Kanban Tool’s “History of Kanban.”

For a deeper dive into one my favorite, most impactful agile books, check out Personal Kanban: Mapping Work, Navigating Life by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry.

What does visualizing your work mean/look like?

For me, it’s a Trello Board, a virtual board on which I pile anything and everything I would like to do onto virtual sticky notes or cards. Then, I prioritize them in order of importance.

What makes it more useful than a simple checklist is that I pull tasks through statuses, like: backlog, to do today, in progress, blocked/on hold, and done. This way, I can easily see my workflow and quickly pick up wherever I left off or address any snags along the way, without having to read through and spend mental energy processing the items that aren’t urgent/highest priority. 

This dynamic pull system has lots of benefits, all shared with illuminating anecdotes in the Personal Kanban book I mentioned above. Within the next few posts, I aim to share a detailed view of my personal kanban, as well as pro-tips for using Trello. It’s on my backlog! Stay tuned!

For now, here’s a snapshot of one of my old Trello boards:

All you need is a space to make three columns: to do, doing, and done. Of course, I have found it useful with time to add additional helpful columns – again, another blog post for another day. :)

You could just as easily use real sticky notes on a wall or other online whiteboarding software you’re probably already familiar with, like Jamboard, Miro, or Mural. The key is being able to pull tasks through stages of doneness and visualizing your work. 

Wait – what about the second rule of Kanban? Limit your WIP, or work in progress.

Which reminds me of more music… 🎵

Dazz Band, “Let It Whip”

So let it whip (let's whip it, baby)

Child (let's whip it right)

Get a grip (let's whip it baby)

(Whip it all night)

Well, what's your trip? (Oh no)

Child

C'mon let it whip

(C'mon whip, c'mon on whip)

There is no time to lose

Devo, “Whip it”

When a problem comes along

You must whip it

Before the cream sits out too long

You must whip it

When something's going wrong

You must whip it

Now whip it

Into shape

Shape it up

Get straight

Go forward

Move ahead

Try to detect it

It's not too late

To whip it

Whip it good

[Thanks for indulging me in that music break. 😊]

Ideally, you limit your work in progress column to one to two tasks at a time so that you can fully focus on completing it/them before moving to the next task. In short, this reduces time wasted context switching between several tasks and highlights any impediments for a particular task, as you can quite literally see the hold up in the middle of your kanban board.  

→ Timeboxing 

Whether you refer to it as the Pomodoro Method or sprints, the concept remains the same: time constraints keep us focused.

When doing any task, set a timebox, or limit, for yourself and for others if you’re working on a team. Within that timebox, make it a goal to produce minimum viable product (MVP). Consider how you might attain maximum value with the least amount of effort or cost. How can you and your team truly make the most of the allotted time? At the end of the timebox, assess and/or demo what you produced.

While you can make your timebox anything from a few seconds to several weeks, I recommend choosing a limit that puts a little squeeze, or some degree of pressure, on you and the team to take the timebox seriously. Think SMART goal here: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based – combined with the notion of a game show ticking clock or spots buzzer beater. 

While you can find timers with all sorts of backgrounds and sounds on YouTube, I’m a fan of pulling up Timer Pizza from my bookmarks bar. Often times I’ll split screen it during team or classroom activities.

→ Retrospectives

If I had to choose ONE of these three agile practices as having the most impact, it would be retrospectives. 

Chances are, you already do some sort of reflection from time to time, but thinking about it from an agile perspective adds some formality to the process, as well as a regular cadence for it – every few sprints in scrum or generally after a handful of timeboxes.

Retrospectives help us examine our process, or how we work, so that we can improve moving forward.

In creating a dedicated, regular time and space to reflect on our process, we more easily notice patterns. We reflect back on our grows, or areas of improvement, and our glows, or strengths. 

In the agile space, there are boatloads of resources and templates for retrospectives. In effort to keep this post relatively brief, I recommend starting with simple retrospectives. 

At the end of a few timeboxes, ask yourself and/or your team to be as specific as possible in answering these prompts: 

🌱 In regards to our process, what were our grows and glows? 🌞

⭐ Another classic is the starfish retro that includes a prompt for each tip of the star. Thinking back on how we worked, what do we want to do more of, less of, start doing, stop doing, and keep doing?

Take some time to write down the answers to these questions on paper or a virtual whiteboard. It’s helpful to be able to group similar thoughts/sticky notes around a paper or make connections between thoughts by drawing lines. Personally, I prefer sticky notes and chart paper, especially for groups, but Jamboard, Miro, or Mural will suffice. 

Once you write down, discuss, and understand this reflection, make a commitment to act on the most important thing or pattern in the next iteration of your work so that you can continuously improve. To combat the risk of your goal being “out of sight, out of mind,” write down your goal and keep it in a visible place where the work is done. Better yet, add some tasks to your kanban or scrum board that will help you meet your goal. 

It’s worth noting that retrospectives work best from a neutral, calm point of view. I liken it to mindfulness meditation, in which you metaphorically can’t see your reflection well in the water if there’s too much wind or storminess causing ripples in the pond. In order to get to a good headspace, I find it helpful to acknowledge all feelings beforehand and do a mindful breathing exercise for a couple minutes. This works well for individuals and groups, in my experience. If you’re not comfortable doing a mindful breathing exercise, most team-building exercises or ice-breakers will work just as well.

Sharing retrospective templates and addressing team feelings/emotional intelligence is yet another topic on my backlog of posts for this blog. Let me know if it’s something you’d like me to bump to the top of my blog backlog. 🙂

Bonus: Get into a flow state. 

Aim for deep work in your timeboxes, as well as during your retrospectives. I like listening to the Flow State Substack, which recommends mostly non-lyrical, interesting music for getting into a groove. That way, I’m not wasting time looking for music or getting distracted by my favorite lyrics. For more on flow states and how to get into them, check out Cal Newport’s books. While they’re all well written and helpful, Deep Work most directly addresses obtaining flow states. 

My favorite artist I’ve discovered through Flow State so far has been Hailu Mergia and The Walias. Mm, funky, cheerful ‘70s Ethiopian jams! 

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In working with both software engineers and students over the years, sharing these approaches to work has driven positive results and often in ways that carry over into people’s personal lives. Not only am I able to achieve my goals faster, I love witnessing how these agile strategies help those around me achieve their goals, too!

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What would you like to read and learn more about in future Agile Educator blog posts? Please feel free to share your suggestions with me using the connect form linked on the menu of this site. Feedback welcome, too! 

Thank you for carving out some of your 1,440 minutes to read my blog post today.