Currently, I’m looking for a full-time job, consulting part-time for a Toptal client, going to the gym, working on 2 subjects for my PhD (+ a scientific article on hold), taking 2 courses, and (re)learning 1 language. Sounds hectic and messy, but so is life… We just need to learn how to traverse it. Here’s what I do using Personal Kanban and Journaling.
There are 2 main elements to my ‘life management’: strategy and tactics. Strategy is the high-level, value-focused decision-making, balancing the tradeoffs and finding what makes most sense for me. Tactics are taking the actual, smartest steps to achieve the goals set by the strategy. Sun Tzu famously recognized this and said: ‘Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy are the noise before defeat’.
For me, the strategy is shaped through Personal Kanban, and tactics are managed by journaling and a calendar.
Personal Kanban – The Structure and Sense-Making for Life
I highly recommend reading the book ‘Personal Kanban: Mapping Work, Navigating Life‘ by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria, which describes in detail the Personal Kanban methodology/way. It’s one of my favorite books.
There are two rules in Personal Kanban: visualize the work and limit the work in progress (WIP). Simple, yet powerful.
For visualizing, I use a Kanban-style board with different buckets and columns for Doing, Blocked, and Done. I limit the WIP at a category level.
Here’s how it works in practice.
Buckets: Categories of Items I Can Pull-in
Work Items (or even better – Life Items) are divided into 4 categories:
- Work bucket
- PhD bucket
- Skills bucket (other learning bucket)
- Hobby bucket
- Wi$h bucket
Work bucket is for… work. Either consulting, full-time work in-house, or own work projects. (I also categorize finding a job (‘naći posao’) into the work bucket). The cards for the Work bucket are green.
PhD bucket covers everything related to PhD studies, currently divided into subjects I’m taking, and then further divided into books, assignments, papers etc. The cards for the PhD bucket are pink.
Skills bucket (or ‘other learning’) is for different things I am learning, not related to the PhD studies. For instance, learning git, taking courses etc. The cards for the Skills bucket are lilac.
Hobby bucket is for any hobbies and activities (language classes, Nordic walking etc.). The cards for the Hobby bucket are dark purple.
Wi$h bucket is a part of a tiny experiment I am running: keeping a 3-day buffer for anything I want to purchase (physical, digital, or experience). When I want to get something, I put it on the board, note the date and wait at least 3 days before purchasing. It’s not typical to have non-work items in the (Personal) Kanban, but it fits nicely for me. The cards for the Wi$h bucket are blue.
Cards move from the buckets into the workflow (organized in columns).
Workflow: Next, Doing, Blocked & Done + WIP Limits
WIP Limits
‘Limit work-in-progress‘ is the second of the two rules in Personal Kanban, and, in my opinion, the most transformative element of the method. By limiting the work in progress, we need to prioritize and make conscious choices about what we work on.
I set up limits per bucket/item category:
- 3 items for work
- 1 item for physical activity
- 2 items for PhD
- 2 items for other learning
- 2 items for hobby
- 1 joker item that can temporarily increase the WIP limit for any category
What I call “Next Bucket” is in practice a column: I put the work/life items I will likely pull into Doing in the near future there.
Blocked is for items that are blocked or on hold – separated into internally and externally blocked.
Done is for finished items.
Visualize the work
Having a (Personal) Kanban board in itself is a way to visualize your work. Here are some additional details you could use:
- Color-coded: in my case, each bucket has its color, which gives insights at a glance – I can easily see what types of items are in focus more or less etc.
- Position: you can order by how much you like something, how hard it is etc. For example, when I finish something, I can put it higher in the done column if it brought me joy, or lower if I didn’t like it. If an item is on the left side of the blocked column, it’s blocked internally; on the right side – externally
- Size: you could play with the size of the sticky notes, e.g. the bigger the size, the more time spent on (or higher the priority)
Journaling
I keep my journaling quite simple, inspired by interstitial journaling.
Every morning, I use Claude Code to generate the daily template and fill it out with not-finished tasks from the previous day.
I add:
- Tasks I plan to do that day, categorized in ~10 categories (and coming from Kanban Buckets);
- Optional notes on work, life, and other;
- Optional ‘plus, minus, next;
- The mood for the day;
- Main focus areas (again from those ~10 categories).
Sidenote on (Google) Calendar and Time Tracking
I would be lost without Google Calendar. I use 3 or 4 inter-synced Google Calendars, and (try to) keep everything up to date.
I also have scheduling links via reclaim.ai that people can use to easily book a time slot. It also has some other automation and analysis features I have not yet explored.
(In the near future, I plan to export all the calendar data I have, and then use Claude Code to analyze it).
I time-track everything related to the buckets work, learning, sidequests etc. For this, I use an app I vibe-coded, trackwell. It’s minimal, easy-to-use and free forever. Check it out here.
(Much like with Calendars, I plan to export the data for further learnings and analysis.)
How to Start
If you’re ready to transition from chaos to clarity, the best way to begin is by keeping it simple. Start by picking up the Personal Kanban book or diving into a few foundational blog posts to grasp the “why” behind the rules.
When you build your first board, don’t worry about complex buckets or intricate color-coding; start with the classic trio of To Do, Doing, and Done. The most critical step is to actually visualize your work and, more importantly, to strictly honor your WIP limits. Even if you start with a limit of just two or three items.
Treat your board as a living laboratory: experiment with different categories, see what catches your eye, and evolve the system as you go. There is no ‘perfect’ board, only the one that helps you navigate your unique life and context more effectively.
Wrapping up
Ultimately, balancing many different segments of your life isn’t about clearing your plate; it’s about mastering the way you move through the feast. By combining the high-level clarity of Personal Kanban with the tactical precision of journaling, I’ve turned what could be a ‘noise before defeat’ into a structured, rhythmic progression. My board isn’t just a list of tasks; it is a visual representation of my values and a physical boundary against burnout.
If your life feels like a chaotic map of competing priorities, I encourage you to start visualizing your work and limiting your WIP. After all, we can’t control the chaos of life, but we can certainly choose how we traverse it. One green, pink, or purple card at a time.