Improve your life by kanban tickets and good habits

The problem

In the last year, I had a feeling of mess in my head. I had a lot of ideas about what to do, how, when, and why to do something. However, I always ended up doing nothing or doing something episodically without a feeling of significant results. All my actions were unsystematic and lacked a common specific goal. In this kind of state, I was easily affected by other people's ideas and opinions. This new stuff in my head made me even more lost.

I felt nervous and couldn't stop thinking about things I should do in the nearest and far future. Things that could lead to problems or circumstances in which I have already experienced stress felt horrible. I couldn't stop thinking about those actions I have to do, even though they will take place in the long future.

I will write another post about how I coped with my stress and fear of a painful future. You can read "Antifragile" by Nassim Nicolas Taleb, which helped me.

Kaizen and a big board

Kaizen is a concept of continuous improvement. I bumped into this philosophy/practice when I was watching an interview with ex-billionaire Margulan Seisembaev. I got interested in it because it seemed like a good filter of mind and a great time management tool. Currently, on 15th November 2020, I am using it for two weeks, but already feel a significant impact on the quality of my life.

Further, I will not deepen into the theoretical aspects of Kaizen. Contrariwise, I will only describe the steps and actions that I did and use.
Please use a physical notebook, pen, and tickets to do the described steps. It is important to have tactile contact. If you have a whiteboard, use it, but it's not necessary for the start. After a couple of months, you can move to Trello.
The next first six steps you will do only once. Further, you will automatically do them in your head.

Find your "Ikigai"

Ikigai is a reason to live. You can find it by answering 4 questions:

1. What do I love?
2. What am I good at?
3. What can I be paid for?
4. What does the world need?

The thing that intersects with all 4 aspects, can be your Ikigai. I chose abstract reason, but still pretty good to filter out stuff. With this mission, I do not feel lost anymore.

My "Ikigai":

To live a happy life with benefit to society and the enviroment.

Write down all the mess in your mind

Write down your dreams, fears, plans, goals, things that make you anxious to tickets.

Separate them into 2 categories

Create 2 categories of tickets: The things that you want to do and the things that you have to do. It will show you how much control you have over your life and how much people are manipulating you.

Filter them using your mission

Take a look at every ticket and ask a question using your Ikigai, for example: "Does this thing will make me happy? Or will a society benefit from it? Or will an environment benefit from it?". If your answer is negative, put aside this ticket.

Analyze tickets that could not pass your filter

At this step, you should understand why you had such thought or desire. After it, you should prevent yourself from having imposed desires. 

For example, your friend wants a new PS5 and tells you about how amazing it is. After this conversation, you decide to buy it. However, you never have been a console gamer. Additionally, you don't like singleplayer games much, and playing competitive games on a gamepad is torture for you.

Categorize your tickets

Come up with your categories or use mine:

Drag all your tickets to corresponding columns.

The next 2 steps you will do constantly, and they will become your core planning instrument.

Make a yearly Kanban

You can make 2020, 2021 ... and further on years Kanban. It is only restricted by your planning horizon. Move tickets that you think you can do in that year, or fraction it so you can. 

Firstly, move all tickets to the TODO column. When you will get clarification or set a plan when you will do them, write down a month of accomplishment on a ticket.

Make a monthly Kanban

Yay! It's a final step.
Create a table for the current month as follows:

1. TODO - tickets that you have to do this month.
2. Planned - tickets with written deadlines on them.
3. In progress (me) - tickets that are in process by me.
4. In progress (3rd party) - tickets that are in process by other people (for example, you are waiting for a business partner to sign a document).
5. Today - tickets that I'm doing today.
6. Done - self-explanatory.

My whiteboard (you can do it in a notebook if you don't own a whiteboard):