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| Marcus Aurelius (source: wikipedia.org) |
You’ve probably noticed a resurgence of interest in Stoic philosophers such as Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Their timeless wisdom is fit for any era, and today’s age of complexity and uncertainty is no exception. You won’t be disappointed to read the classics from these authors. What surprised me is how much one of them in particular has to say about kanban, albeit indirectly. As Personal Kanban co-author Jim Benson writes, it’s not enough to be productive. You need to be effective. Living a vigorous and effective life is what Stoicism is all about.
On the Shortness of Life is one of Seneca’s most famous letters. Four Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss has the full text of it on his blog. Far from decrying the brevity of our lives, Seneca argues that we’re all given more than enough time to make a meaningful impact. As Seneca writes:
“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.”
“So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it.”
Had Seneca lived in 20th century Japan, he would’ve said much of our lives is muda, or waste. Waiting and underutilized human potential are two of its biggest forms. It’s easier to see this waste if we view our working lives more as a factory or process. We’re working for the world’s worst boss, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Although time is our most precious resource, it’s intangible. Because of this, we fall prey to the illusion that it isn’t that valuable. Possessions can be earned and lost, but time comes to us moment by moment and once passed is gone forever. Seneca argues that our priorities are precisely backward:
“Men do not suffer anyone to seize their estates, and they rush to stones and arms if there is even the slightest dispute about the limit of their lands, yet they allow others to trespass upon their life—nay, they themselves even lead in those who will eventually possess it. No one is to be found who is willing to distribute his money, yet among how many does each one of us distribute his life! In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal.”
To make matters worse, so many of us take a cavalier attitude toward the attention and time of others. Thus the problem is compounded:
“I am often filled with wonder when I see some men demanding the time of others and those from whom they ask it most indulgent. Both of them fix their eyes on the object of the request for time, neither of them on the time itself; just as if what is asked were nothing, what is given, nothing. Men trifle with the most precious thing in the world; but they are blind to it because it is an incorporeal thing, because it does not come beneath the sight of the eyes, and for this reason it is counted a very cheap thing—nay, of almost no value at all.”
So how does kanban figure into any of this? Assuming you’re persuaded to agree with Seneca (and Bruce Lee), how does kanban help you make the best use of your time?
Seneca advises us to avoid “laborious dedication to useless tasks”. For our purposes, that means avoidance of racking your faulty memory or digging through notebooks and to-do lists. A kanban board keeps all of your tasks and projects in front of you at all times in a visual, rearrangeable, and socially accessible format. As Edmond Lau says in his new book, your brain should be used as a processor of information, not a storage device. Time and energy spent just trying to recall all of your tasks depletes your ability to decide which tasks to work on and when. You’re less likely to assign them their proper place in a wider context, and you’re more likely to work on low-impact, nonessential tasks. Kanban allows you to leverage your time and energy to the best possible use.
And what about others’ time? How much is squandered in meetings with your co-workers? Your boss? And your boss’s boss? How many opportunities for meaningful input and feedback were lost because nobody - including you - had a clear idea of what you’re working on and why? And don’t forget the power of compound interest. The advantages of those lost opportunities would’ve built upon themselves, further multiplying your impact. Like time, lost opportunities are discounted because they’re intangible. Nothing could be further from the truth!
You need a tool that can match the complexity of your work environment, and kanban fits the bill. We can muddle along without it, but we’ll spend more time getting less work done, with a smaller impact. Like time, lost potential is invisible, so we might not realize what we’re giving up. On top of that, many of us cling to a subtle version of the labor theory of value in which we equate busyness and hours worked with productivity and impact. What if we could work just as long and hard but with tools that unlock our full potential? How much more satisfaction would we gain? How much more engaged would we be? As Seneca advises, we must live our lives and not merely exist.
