You've heard of Fantasy Football...
/… but how about Fantasy Kanban?
To recap: Kanban is a strategy for organizing and prioritizing your tasks. The two key points are “Visualize your workflow” and “Limit your work-in-progress.” In practical terms, you write everything you have to get done down on sticky notes. Put them all on a physical board, under the heading TO DO. Move no more than five tasks into the DOING column at a time. (There is also at third column, DONE, but that’s more useful in group settings where someone else might need to know you’ve finished a task.)
Easy enough, and very effective in keeping you from getting overwhelmed by All The Things.
So, in my ongoing, rigorous tidying of my study, I found that more than a few of the things I touched would trigger a small flood of shinyperfects, ideas for projects I could do with said things. Because I am older and wiser, I will now simply list some of them rather than actually add them to the kanban board. Because I am older. And wiser.
Project Fun
Okay, so I might actually do this one. [ed. note: OLDER AND WISER, DALE!!]
Scholastic Book Fairs FOREVER! This is literally from my elementary days, so around sixty years old. I thought it would be fun to work through the whole book and actually do all the projects.
Antique Music Notebook
I actually cannot remember where this came from. I think it was in the flotsam of my in-laws’ house as we closed it down. It’s an old music notebook, and every piece in it is handwritten.
The paper is thick, a little nubbly, but clearly preprinted with music staves. I haven’t recognized any of the pieces; no composers are credited. I don’t think they’re original pieces, and the handwriting on the cover is almost too faded to read. I think it says Gesänge ___ R. A. Br, i.e., ‘Songs ___ R. A. B__r.’ That second word is probably für, ‘for,’ since I can make out an umlaut, so it wouldn’t be von, ‘by.’ So ‘Songs for R. A. B__r.’ The last name eludes me:
Boor? Baar? Bauer? Someone with more experience with old calligraphic handwriting should help me with this.
Despite the title, there are no lyrics, and most pieces appear to be dances, so I’m guessing this is someone’s notebook they used for get-togethers back in the days one had to make one’s own music to dance to.
At any rate, I could transcribe this thing and put it out there into the world.
Guerilla Art Kit
Because you never know when you’re going to be compelled to put your message out there in the world.
I mean, it’s right there in the subtitle.
The book provides how-to for making stencils, stamps, stickers, and more. It gives exercises and templates for all kinds of activities, and although the book is fairly anodyne in what it’s urging you to do — give people little unexpected pleasures — the implication is that you could put some pretty pointed commentary out there.
Which is actually appealing at this point.
I fully admit to thinking — now that I’ve blogged about these things — that I might actually add these to the kanban board…
Hey, no one said that kanban board had to be cleared by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil, did they?
