These small squares that we stick
on a board or on a wall, have power.
When we are trying to manage our time, and deal with the
fact that we need to get things done.
Or when a group is talking about a subject they have more
than three things to say about.
You can find these sticky notes all over your house, your
office, even your computer, but do we acknowledge their real power?
Long before I was introduced to Agile and Kanban, I used to
write everything down on notes, especially small square ones. One day, when I
was still in my quality management role, I was introduced to the sticky ones.
Small, colorful, stick-to-anything notes.
I was hooked.
For someone with “ADHD” like me, these sticky notes were
incredibly useful for figuring out where I put what and how to remember
everything I need to do.
Pen and paper have always been
the fastest way for me to express ideas, much faster
than any computer software, and of course, "The
opposite of forgetting is writing down”. Combining this with a pack of
sticky notes brought order to my day to day schedule.
Of course, it wasn’t that before my day was chaos. I managed
my day and my tasks without sticky notes, but there’s no question that they
helped make it much easier for me, and freed up valuable time for other tasks.
So what makes the sticky notes
so powerful?
The first thing comes to my mind when thinking about the
power of sticky notes is visibility.
Visibly is not just about writing it down. Visual thinking
is already well known to be a powerful tool. So with sticky notes, I can write
things down, put them where I can see them, and see my entire wish list, or the
list of things I need to do or realize.
This is the first step in
organizing my day to day activities.
With sticky notes, it's easy.
Now, when I have everything
visual in front of me, I can start making choices.
I can start decide what I want to do and when. I can start
moving those sticky notes around and checking myself before deciding on the
'path' I wish to take. I can even free some space to add more few things into
my wish list.
My ideas are right in front of my eyes, so why not play with
them? Add some colors, change their order around, add notes, group or sort
them. This helps get some sense of them, and it is a pretty easy way of making
choices.
It’s also a simple way of sharing my ideas with other
people. When you put your ideas on sticky notes as a group, it’s an excellent
brainstorm visibility tool, as well!
This is an amazingly simple way
to help get things done.
So we visualize the things we want to do , and play
around with them a bit. Now, we just need to do them, right?
So the last step you can do now
is place those stick notes on a simple three column board, and visualize
your way through having those ideas become a reality.
Sound familiar?
Since you can now see your ideas and how the tasks are
moving forwards with your sticky notes, you can add, change and get early
feedback over your own progress, maybe even change your ideas to adapt to your
needs.
With kids at home, there is a lot of fun using sticky notes
to get things done, and it’s pretty much the same way. It's just that the
content of the sticky notes is different.
You can manage almost any chore with sticky notes. Simple
day to day activities, chores around the house, your children’s schedule, your
family trip, personal tasks, and huge software projects.
The funny thing I have noticed, over the last few years,
that even task management software looks more and more like a board with lots
of sticky notes.
See?! It sticks!
Ho… and don’t forget to have fun on the way…
