Projects combined with kanban

[hamsterslayr]

Just figured out I can use the Projects plugin combined with the Kanban plugin to help me manage myself at multiple levels.

Could be old hat to many of you but for me today it was so thought I’d share.

1. Top level [Projects plugin] I have an Eisenhower style board view to keep track of all my different projects & overall responsibilities at the top level. Read: the big spinning plates each covers a work project, line management duties, BD work, leadership roles. Sometimes a project may have more than one note (‘plate’) representing a different workstream. This is organised by Eisenhower ‘box’.

2. Bottom level [Kanban plugin]. Each one of the above is an individual note that itself is formatted to be viewed using the Kanban plugin. Each one will have tasks by WIP status or by delegations.

You can easily set up a new note template so that it will open with the Kanban plugin.

My only watchit is that the Kanban plugin does not like extra notes within the markdown so it will delete anything extra you have. Best to keep notes-notes separately.

[bullettrain]

Hi @hamsterslayr

Any chance you could expand this more with screenshots or some kind of demo tutorial? i’m new to both of these plugins but know the basics. This sounds great for my preferred workflow.

[hamsterslayr]

Sure! Attempt below, which hopefully makes some sense and not too detailed for you. It’s all very fluid at the moment and I have already changed very slightly from my earlier post^[1]. Happy to answer questions and would love ideas and suggestions from anyone.

First I use the following terms:

• Task: something to do, the normal meaning! May have subtasks or may not. Once done, it’s done.
• Plate: a bit more subjective. You could call it a project or a package if it works for you. But it’s not something that is ‘done’ in the way a task is.

I look at each of my projects like a spinning plate I need to keep alive (I am a consultant with many). If a project is big enough, this might be split into sub-packages which in my system/mind would itself be a plate each. Other plates I have include things like CPD, managerial work, leadership responsibilities, appraisal objectives, housework, personal stuff and so on. I also have a “someday maybe” where things are allowed to whither.

Tl;dr For me: project > plate > task. A plate may actually be a project or it may be a part of a project—but it’s something that has a load of tasks and it has changing priorities and milestones over time.

File structure

I have non-static and non-log stuff (i.e. projects, WIP work docs, tasks) in Effort, which is divided up into my roles. ^[2]. The folder structure is like this:

• Effort
  • Role 1
    • Plates (each plate note goes here)
    • Sleeping (archived/dead plates)
  • Role 2
    …
  • Tasks (I just keep all the Kanban task notes here in one place for convenience)
  • WIP docs (convenient area for plate-related temporary notes)

Project plugin

You can see the plates above in the Projects plugin, Board view. Not many for this role!

1. Label 1: I’ve got Projects plugin setup so a project for the plugin purposes mirrors the Role… subfolder, nice an’ neat.
2. Label 2: The Board is arranged by Eisenhower box or whatever you call it, using the card front matter. If you do this I recommend you use a string like “Box 2” instead of a number in the front matter as sometimes typing a number ends up as a string anyway by error and it gets annoying.

Plate note

Each plate if you click in the Project board is a ‘plate note’, simple example above. At the top (label 3) is where I link the Kanban task note, which is of course the task list that can be opened in the Kanban plugin. The rest above includes useful stuff to keep an eye on. If I hover over the link I can even quickly tick off items if I wish rather than opening the Kanban task note separately.

Kanban task note

So this is just a markdown note that is my task list associated with the ‘plate’, with frontmatter and appended code which can be read by the Kanban plugin. It is slightly redacted for you by folding my headers. I used the Templates core plugin to automatically create this structure with the front matter and stuff at the bottom automatically added.

I could even have more than one of these for a plate if you like but not sure why.

Above is how this same note looks in the Kanban view. I just click the 3 dots at the top right to view as Kanban.

Watchit

As mentioned earlier, the Kanban plugin deletes extraneous data in a note. Best to be strict on only keeping task lists for anything openable by the plugin (as it was intended).

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1. Instead of Project plugin → Kanban task list → linked plate note, I’ve changed to Project plugin → plate note → linked Kanban task note. Subtle change but I like it better. ↩︎

2. Folder structure inspired by The Ultimate Folder System: A quixotic journey to ACE - Knowledge management - Obsidian Forum. All pics are from my fave theme: 80s Neon. ↩︎

[obsiddy]

I am a total obsidian noob, but i would like to achieve this. How exactly do i get kanban to detect these task notes?

[hamsterslayr]

You should be able to do that provided you have the text below in your note. You probably also need at least one second level header (e.g. “todo”) but I haven’t tested without.

If the kanban plugin doesn’t open it as a kanban board, you can click the 3 dots in the top right and then “open as kanban board”

If it helps, here is a basic markdown template you can start a note with Template.md (192 Bytes). Of course you can also hit CTRL+P and type kanban: create new board. You’ll just have to make sure it saves in the place you want etc. so that the Project plugin picks it up.