Kanban is a visual method for tracking task progress across three simple columns: not started, in progress, and done. Its real value isn’t the board itself, it’s the limit you set on how many tasks can sit in the in-progress column at once.
Key Takeaways
- Kanban tracks work across three columns: not started, in progress, and done.
- The board’s real value is the limit on how many tasks can be in progress simultaneously.
- A crowded in-progress column signals a discipline problem, not a productivity problem.
- Capping work in progress at three or four tasks feels restrictive at first, and works.
- The board makes an invisible problem visible in seconds.
Why This Is Harder Than It Looks
In project management work I led in global technology services, the biggest problem was rarely a lack of work. It was the number of tasks starting at the same time without any of them finishing. A Kanban board exposed this visually in seconds: when the ‘in progress’ column filled up with twenty tasks, the problem clearly wasn’t productivity, it was discipline about how many tasks were allowed at once.
The most important rule isn’t how to draw the board. It’s setting a hard limit on how many tasks can be ‘in progress’ at the same moment. Cap it at three or four, and hold that limit even when it feels restrictive at first, which is exactly the discipline Continuity, one of the five elements of The Method, is built to protect.
The Steps
Step 1: Draw three columns: not started, in progress, done. The visual separation alone reveals where work is actually piling up.
Step 2: Set a hard limit on the in-progress column, three or four tasks maximum. An unlimited in-progress column hides the real bottleneck instead of surfacing it.
Step 3: Finish a task before pulling a new one in, even if the limit feels tight. The limit only works if it’s honored under pressure, which is exactly when it matters most.
Step 4: Review the board weekly to see which tasks stall in progress longest. A task that sits in progress far longer than others usually points to a specific, fixable blocker.
A Worked Example
The week the in-progress limit was actually enforced, rather than treated as a suggestion, the number of tasks reaching ‘done’ each week increased, even though the total amount of work hadn’t changed. The bottleneck had never been effort. It had been how many things were open at once.
Closing
Before adding another tool to manage your workload, count how many tasks are currently ‘in progress’ at once. That number is usually the real problem.
FAQ
What if the work genuinely requires several tasks running in parallel?
Some parallelism is normal, but most in-progress columns are inflated by tasks that started out of habit, not necessity. Test a lower limit before assuming your work is the exception.
Does this only work for team projects?
No. The same three columns and the same limit apply just as well to a personal task list.
What do I do with a task that’s genuinely stuck?
Note the specific blocker next to it on the board rather than starting a new task in its place. A visible blocker gets addressed faster than a silently growing pile.
