The answer is simple. Focus!
If you want to get your kids to
perform their chores, one of the most important factors is focus. This is one
of the keys to your success. The task board is an excellent solution for scope
and focus our attention over the most important tasks and getting them done.
Sometimes we get to the point
where our kids feel like they have too much to do. This might even be because
of us, the parents. Not because we give them a lot to do, but because sometimes
even a few simple (to us) tasks seem huge to our kids. Sometimes we forget that
they aren’t really small adults at all, but children. Children who aren’t very
experienced at setting goals or priorities.
I find that parents come home and
immediately start with a list - “take out the garbage, pick your coat up from
the floor, why is your plate here, and why is your room in such a mess?”...
Even I can get stressed out from
a list like that, and kids take it even worse.
Homework is also a task that can
cause stress - what seems simple to us, like four pages in English and two in
Maths can create a feeling of pressure to get the tasks done. Ask him to empty
the dishwasher as well, and you’ll find that it’s too much for them to handle.
If we succeed in changing the
way they perceive their tasks, then we will be able to change the feelings that
follow hearing about these tasks as well. So for example, there are tasks
that we can head off the pressure before they start - for example, what do I do
when I come back from school? Put the coat and bag in the room, eat lunch,
clear the table and tidy up the big stuff in my room. Other tasks we will split
up into smaller tasks - for example “Maths” would be the header, with “Page 1”,
“Page 2”, etc. will be the tasks.
So how does the task board help us here? It’s simple!
One of the Agile principles of
managing the work flow is first to be able to visualize it.
So our first step will be to do
exactly that.
Draw three columns ( to being
with) on a white board. Our flow will be to have tasks that we need to do,
those in progress, and those we have done.
Put the tasks on the board, and
you can visualize where you are today.
See? Simple!
In the following example. Adam has tons of tasks to
complete, AND he’s expected to do his homework. No wonder he is stressed. This
stress will probably cause him to drop everything, and try to avoid doing any
of his tasks at all.
One of the main advantages of the task board is, that it
makes our chore bottlenecks visible.
Now we can place the
tasks in the right order, and we can see if we are overwhelming anybody with
their task load.
The second, and not less
important principle is to limit our Work In Progress, or WIP.
This means that you can only have so many tasks that are in
the ‘Doing /In-progress’ column at the same time.
Sometimes limiting the tasks that are overloading our WIPs
is the best way to get things done. Starting from doing one thing at a time
(Yes, we can set more sophisticated WIP flows, but you are dealing with kids
and basic principles, so keep it as simple as possible).
Limiting our WIP load doesn’t
mean you should stop doing things. It just means that you need to control what
you are doing at the same time, in parallel, and limit it to what we are really
able to handle. As all tasks are now visible on the board, we will make sure to
do one thing at a time. Adding more and more chores to the ‘Doing’ column won’t
help if you child is already bogged down with tasks, and starting more and more
new tasks without finishing old ones only leads to delays and frustrations.
Keep in mind that we are at home with our kids - not at work
with our team or employees. This means that our ability to control the load is
much more simple:
1. Decide what important.
2. Decide what comes first (priority).
3. Divide tasks up into small chunks if possible.
4. How long will it take?
5. Work on one task at a time.
6. Pull tasks from the “To-Do“ column only when your
completed the previous one.
So if you told your child to do
lots of things at once, now you have a different method. Visualize everything
you want them to do, give each task the right importance and priority, pull
tasks only when you are done doing the last task, and you’ll feel how the sense
of being under pressure is lifted.
Take the first example we gave, what the kid needs to do
when he comes home from school. There are a few solutions for the problem, such
as:
1. Planning in advance the ongoing and repeating tasks, and placing
them on the board.
2. Limiting, prioritizing and timing those tasks to the right time
and place.
This way, instead of dropping all the tasks on the kids at
the same time, when the kids get home they can see the task board and know what
they need to get done. The child then selects one task after another, moving
them into the ‘Done’ column when they are complete.
Let’s take the example of
homework:
Let's teach the child to divide into smaller tasks. Then
visualize those tasks on the board, and decide together on right time to
perform those tasks.
So, to focus means:
1.
Visualize your flow
○
Identify our list of tasks /chores.
○
Identify the crowded areas or
bottlenecks.
2.
Limit our load, or actions
to reduce the load:
○
Plan tasks and chores that we know
need to be done at a specific time in advance.
○
Decide priority, timing and
importance...
○
Divide to small chunks.
○
Stop working on other tasks, and
focus on moving bottleneck tasks forward.
○
Do one thing at a time at our own
pace.
○ Pull - Only start a new
task when we complete the previous one
Sometimes we can put a WIP limit over our 'In Progress/ tasks,
but this is something for another blog :)
Want to learn more about Kanban?
