Interesting task/ project statuses referenced in Jason Fried’s launch of Fizzy, a streamlined Kanban task/ project manager:

  1. Not now
  2. Maybe?
  3. Investigating
  4. In progress
  5. On-hold
  6. QA to confirm fixed
  7. Done

That so many of the statuses are dedicated to states before the “work” even “begins” hadn’t really occurred to me, but seems to make so much sense – A lot of energy is really about which particular tasks to put energy to now: There always seems to be no shortage of tasks to take attention, but where do each of them stand relative to one another, and which one should actually come to the head of line right now, could probably be said to be ‘half the battle’.

So Task/ Project statuses should reflect this –

  • The: (a) I’ve got a great idea but I clearly know it’s not something for the immediate present;

  • The (b) This probably has legs, but not convinced it should supplant what else is going on right now?;

  • The (c) Let’s confirm there’s really something here before we roll-up our sleeves to work on it;

  • The (d) Okay, we’re working on it now and let’s get ‘er done;

  • The (e) We shipped something but 9 times out of 10 there’s at least some tweaks that need to be made before it can be left less attended; and

  • The (f) Okay, this is done, we can remove it from our frontal lobe for now

That was cathartic even to type, and giving yourself the permissions enabled by each of these levels helps to further de-stress and support forward progress without fighting against your own psychology about what exactly your level of attention/ commitment is to a particular idea/ task/ project.

Phew.