this post is a bit less “serious” than the last one… enjoy
If you are like me, juggling half-read books is a big problem. I love reading multiple books at once and making serendipitous connections between them, but when I have specific reading to accomplish, juggling just doesn’t work.
I forget which books I’ve started, I go down rabbit holes of references and wikipedia articles. My curiosity gets the best of me and the next thing I know I’ve blown 8 hours of reading time without finishing the articles or book I set out to consume.
To help me focus on specific reading for upcoming conferences and papers I am working on, I’ve started using BookBans to limit my RIP. As a prime example, while Joseph Pelrine’s “Reading up for CALM-Alpha” list is very welcome, I need some structure in my consumption. February is almost on top of us already.
Time to limit my RIP (Reading In Progress).
I’ve set up a BookBan for the “Reading up for CALM Alpha” list… I thought I’d share.
 |
| Introducing… Jabe’s CALM Alpha BookBan |
Personal Kanban is a great way to manage media consumption and it is very simple to use a BookBan.
I even put together a little how-to video:
Play Along at Home
I’ve done most of the work for you here if you’d like to play along. I’ll be glad to share my BookBan as a starting point for yours. The books are all linked and the papers too.
You might want to consider how you read — maybe your columns are different or maybe after you use mine for a little while you’ll realize you like reading in a different way.. and that would be lovely.
Ping me on twitter @cyetain or send me an email (BookBan at calmbetawave dot com) and I’ll be glad to send you a copy of the GoogleDoc based CALM Alpha Bookban.
Have fun! (and Keep Kanban Weird!)
Awesome! The only thing I might suggest is make the last column "Have Read". Otherwise it looks like it says Read and not … um "Read".
fixed… thanx for the suggestion. It had crossed my mind, but I didn't think it all the way through.
I really like what you've created here. I especially like the lane where you have a review going on, that's a great addition. I have been using my kindle as my book kanban. I don't have a board. Here's how it works: My home page is my RIP, the archive page(s) is my ready to read and once a book is completed it goes into one of my collections (business, fiction, biography, etc.) that I've set up. I always have many books going at once and although it's not traditional to the point that you can't see everything in one shot, this set up has worked well for me.
I enjoyed this post very much. In our local agile book club, the value stream was: Backlog -> Selected -> Reading -> Retrospective -> Done.When we had to pull a book from the Backlog to "Selected" (which didn't happen often, because it takes time to read books, especially as a group), the club had really thoughtful conversations about available options. Pull and limited WIP shifted the focus of conversation from prioritization to selection. This is one of the important things about Kanban in general and something all club members learned very well.At the selection time, everyone reevaluated their interests in particular topics (they did change with time!) and we talked a lot about the books while comparing our options. I've found the Personal Kanban to be very helpful in reading and in professional development in general.