There are those days where your personal kanban is on fire. You’re in a state of flow and tickets are just moving right along. The days go by and you look at your “done” column… it’s full. Really, really full.

The “done” tickets seem to swim. There are so many of them! You’ve been productive, but what might all that work actually mean?

A few weeks ago, I started a side experiment. By hand, each day, I wanted to see what the actual impact of my work was… on me.

What was I getting from the work I was doing? What was I learning? How was I making sure I was becoming healthier?

Was I stuck in the productivity trap and not growing… not being truly effective?

Image 1: Tracking learning, creating, and health

Each day I gathered my inputs, outputs, and maintenance, which is an overly technical way of saying:
• What did I learn today?
• What did I create today?
• What did I do to make sure I stayed healthy?

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