## What is kanban Kanban is simple and clear grid-like arrangement, which is used in several software tools, including Odoo, Trello, Kanbanote and Ayoa. Kanban is psychologically reassuring because all cards are visible. This satisfies the brain that you’re managing ‘everything’ and eliminates worry. I feel sure that [David Allen](https://gettingthingsdone.com/) would agree with this in terms of #GTD, where the approach is getting your ideas and concerns out of the mind and written down. Kanban is a scheduling system for lean or just-in-time manufacturing, developed by Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer at Toyota to improve efficiency. It takes its name from the cards that track production within a factory. The kanban method maintains inventory levels and signals when to manufacture and deliver a new shipment as material is consumed. It brings visibility to suppliers and buyers, and highlights problem areas by measuring lead time and cycle time of processes and their component stages. Kanban is used in software development to manage and share work. This approach aims to balance demand with available capacity by improving the handling of system-level bottlenecks. ## Kanban implemented in software Trello, Kanbanote (for Evernote), Odoo, and Ayoa all use Kanban. Kanban at the heart of this system to publish an internet site through Evernote. Its aim is to tag Evernotes ‘published’ and then convert an Evernote stack into a website using postach.io. ![[kanban-at-the-heart-of-the-system.png]] ## Kanban using Trello The Trello kanban can help you to focus on the task at hand whether personal or for work, from the operational to the strategic. The following Trello kanban helps to drives GTD activity: ![[trello-kanban.png]] ## Kanban using Ayoa [[Ayoa project planner and mind mapping]] uses a kanban-like presentation and has a very good modelling interface. ![[ayoa-workflow.png]] ## Kanban using Todoist [[Todoist is an effective task manager|Todoist]] remains one of the most flexible, the most available, the easiest to use and the most reliable task managers. Screen print of todoist kanban in kanbanist: ![[todoist-kanbanist-overview.png]] Todoist has now integrated its own native kanban board. This is an example of the kanban board view in todoist: ![[Todoist board view.png]] Todoist sync is excellent, reliable and fast and it can quickly become a trusted system. The horizontal presentation of kanban is more natural, rather than the downward presentation in todoist. Todoist is very well suited to use with [[Getting Things Done (GTD) framework|Getting Things Done]] because it includes the notion of the inbox and can quickly become your trusted system. ## Kanban using Odoo And finally an example of kanban in [Odoo](https://odoo.com/), which can manage CRM, orders and direct order-related tasks. Kanban is an excellent planning tool; it’s flexible; you can establish sequences and deadlines, with columns as stages or projects. ![[odoo-project-kanban.png]] ## Kanban using Kanbanote for Evernote The kanbanote dashboard system is useful to sort Evernote content in a kanban format, to see relationship between items and drive actions. ![[kanbanote organising evernote content.png]] This visual presentation is invaluable in a world of so many words. You can set up boards for project with columns which correspond to the tags on your Evernotes such now, next, soon, and waiting. ![[kanbanote-evernote-loop.png]] The functional requirement is to have a way of sorting out captured data. If you’re like me, you capture questions, issues and observations. But when you’re trying to turn that into content, you may have to regroup Evernotes from many different places. This system allows you to use Evernote as your GTD inbox and then filter and sort content to focus on next actions. ![[Funnel-with-ideas-and-Linking.png|400]] The following video demonstrates a project with columns and tags now, next, soon or waiting in any project folder.  This video shows how you can configure columns from any notebook.  This is how you can configure the columns in Kanbanote, to reflect the tags current, next, soon, waiting and someday. ![[planner-in-kanbanote.png]]  This system, therefore, allows you to capture everything into Evernote freely and then to focus on things that you should be doing, can do and want to do. You can combine Kanbanote with the Evernote task system which allows you to establish tasks within a note and to display an overall task list as shown below. ![[evernote-task-list.png]] This can form quite a powerful combination allowing you to get an overview of action notes by tag in Kanbanote, and then set tasks within action each individual Evernote. ## Conclusion All the software systems above use the kanban principal, which is clear, and clarity is important when there’s a lot to do. Although the choice of software tool is yours, we recommend those that use the kanban presentation. It’s a simple ‘one after the other’ arrangement, which the brain can understand easily at a glance.