Personal Kanban for ADHD: A To Do, Doing, Done Board

You have six things "in progress". The report is half written, the spare room half cleared, two emails half drafted. Nothing is finished, and every one of them is tugging at you.

A personal kanban board is built for exactly this: three columns, To Do, Doing and Done, and one rule that does most of the work. Only a few cards are allowed in Doing at once, so you can't start a new thing until you've finished or parked an old one.

What personal kanban is (and where it came from)

Kanban is Japanese for "signboard", according to Wikipedia's history of kanban. It began at Toyota in the 1940s and 50s as a factory scheduling system, borrowed from the way supermarkets restock shelves only as customers take things.

The board version later spread to offices and software teams. Wikipedia's article on the kanban board notes that simple boards have columns for "to-do", "doing" and "done".

Personal kanban is the one-person version. It comes from the 2011 book Personal Kanban: Mapping Work, Navigating Life by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry. The book's description sums it up: "Personal Kanban asks only that we visualize our work and limit our work-in-progress." The official Personal Kanban site gives those same two rules:

Visualise your work.
Limit your work in progress.

That's the whole method. The rest is making those rules easy to keep.

Why a kanban board suits ADHD brains

The National Institute of Mental Health lists signs of ADHD in adults that include "trouble remembering daily tasks", "trouble focusing on a large task or multitasking" and "trouble following instructions or finishing projects". A board doesn't treat any of that. It works around it in three ways.

It takes your tasks out of your head. Working memory is your mental notepad. A 2013 meta-analysis in Neuropsychology by Alderson and colleagues pooled 38 studies and found moderate-sized working memory differences between adults with ADHD and those without, concluding that these difficulties "persist into adulthood". A board holds the list for you; our guide to out of sight, out of mind with ADHD explains why visible beats remembered.

It makes juggling visible. Switching between tasks has a cost even when it feels quick. The American Psychological Association summarises experiments by Rubinstein, Meyer and Evans (2001) in which participants "lost time when they had to switch from one task to another", and lost more as the tasks got more complex. Six cards in Doing is six tasks you're switching between, in plain sight.

It forces a choice. In a 2017 post on ADHD & Marriage, Melissa Orlov writes that "having to overtly choose" a few things to focus on "gets past some of the biggest issues ADHD adults have with task management". A Doing column with a limit makes you do that choosing every day.

We found no research testing personal kanban in people with ADHD specifically, so treat it as a practical tool, not a proven treatment.

The WIP limit, explained simply

WIP stands for work in progress. Atlassian's guide to WIP limits defines them as limits that "set the maximum amount of work that can exist in each status of a workflow". On a personal board, that means one number on your Doing column.

When Doing is full, you can't pull in a new card. You have three honest options:

Finish something and move it to Done.
Park something: move it to Waiting, or back to To Do, and write on the card where you stopped.
Leave the new card in To Do until there's room.

What you can't do is quietly start it anyway.

How many? The Personal Kanban site suggests about 2 to 3 items for individuals, and its Personal Kanban for You page puts it as "three things or less". Start with three. If you keep ending the day with three half-done cards, drop to two.

Write the number on the column itself: "Doing (max 3)". A limit you have to remember is a limit you'll forget.

How to set up a paper board

Paper is the best place to start, because a board on a wall is hard to ignore. You need sticky notes (small squares keep tasks short), a marker pen, and a surface: a door, the wall by your desk, the side of the fridge or a sheet of card.

Step 1: Mark out the columns

Make three columns, left to right: To Do, Doing (max 3), Done, with To Do the widest. If a lot of your work depends on other people replying, add Waiting between Doing and Done; the Personal Kanban site lists Waiting, Blocked and Today as optional extras.

Step 2: Empty your head onto notes

Set a ten-minute timer and write every task you're carrying, one per note, as a next action you could start: "Call the dentist to rebook", not "Dentist". Anything bigger than one sitting needs splitting first; see how to break down tasks with ADHD.

Step 3: Fill To Do, then cut it

Stick everything in To Do, then move anything not needed in the next week or two into an envelope labelled "Later". Sixty notes in To Do is just your old to-do list on a wall.

Step 4: Pull your first cards

Move up to three notes into Doing. Unsure which? Our guide to prioritising tasks with ADHD has a quick way to decide. Start the first one now, even for five minutes.

Step 5: Put the board where you'll trip over it

Orlov's advice is to "put it in a place that you will stumble upon it so you don't have to remember it": beside your desk, on the front door, next to the kettle.

How to set up a board in an app

An app suits you better if you work in several places or share tasks with others. Features and prices below were checked on each company's own pages in November 2026.

Trello is built around boards. Its support guide explains that a board contains lists and each list contains cards, so you create three lists named To Do, Doing (max 3) and Done. Trello's pricing page lists a free plan with unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per Workspace and up to 10 collaborators per Workspace. Standard costs $5 per user a month billed annually, or $6 billed monthly.
Todoist has a board layout for any project. Its help article says "each section is displayed as a column", and you drag tasks between sections. The layout is listed for the Beginner (free), Pro and Business plans.
Notion has a board view for databases. Its help page says a board "groups your database pages by a specific property", grouping by a status property if you have one, and by default shows the number of cards in each column. That count is useful for spotting when Doing is over its limit.

Keep it to three or four columns and skip labels and automations for the first two weeks. Still choosing an app? Our Notion vs Todoist vs Obsidian comparison covers the trade-offs.

Example board: a work week

Here's a board for someone in an office job on a Tuesday morning.

To Do

Draft agenda for Friday's team meeting
Book venue for the December training day
Update the client contact spreadsheet

Doing (max 3)

Write sections 2 and 3 of the Q4 budget
Prepare slides for Thursday's presentation
Reply to the supplier about the late delivery

Waiting

IT: software renewal costs (asked Mon)
Sam: sign-off on the hiring plan (asked last Thu)

Done

Sent interview invites
Approved four invoices

At 10am a colleague asks for help with a spreadsheet. Doing is full, so the request goes to the top of To Do. Once the supplier reply is sent, it can come in. Sam's card has sat in Waiting for five days: time to chase.

Example board: a home week

Home boards work well on the fridge, where the whole household can see them.

To Do

Book the car service
Take three bags to the charity shop
Order school shoes

Doing (max 2)

Pay the electricity bill and set up a direct debit
Clear the spare room bed

Waiting

Landlord: reply about the boiler (emailed Sat)

Done

Returned the parcel
Booked the dentist

The limit here is two, because home tasks compete with work, children and tiredness. Pick the number that matches the energy you actually have.

The daily and weekly routine

A board only works if you touch it. Keep the routine tiny.

Morning (2 minutes)

Move anything in Doing you won't touch today back to To Do.
If there's room, pull the next card in, and pick the one you'll start first.

During the day

Move a card the moment it changes state; moving a note to Done is a small win worth having. If you stop mid-task, write where you stopped on the card. Our guide to switching tasks without losing your place has a three-minute routine for this.

Evening (3 minutes)

Move anything finished to Done.
Check Waiting. Write a chase reminder on anything older than three days.
Add any new tasks from the day to To Do.

Weekly (15 minutes)

Look at Done, then clear it. It's evidence of what you got through, which matters on weeks that felt like failures.
Prune To Do. Remove anything you no longer need to do. Move anything not for the next fortnight to "Later".
Check for stuck cards. Anything in Doing for more than a week is too big, unclear or unwanted. Split it, rewrite it or drop it.

This pairs well with a 20-minute Sunday reset.

When the board goes stale

Every board goes stale eventually. A busy week, no cards moved, and the board stops matching reality, so you avoid looking at it. That's normal, and fixable in about 15 minutes.

Take everything out of Doing and put it back in To Do. Start from zero.
Clear Done without reviewing it.
Go through To Do quickly. For each card, ask: is this still true? Bin anything finished, irrelevant or no longer yours.
Add anything missing. Two minutes of writing whatever's in your head.
Pull one card into Doing and start it before you do anything else.

If it happens often, the board is usually too complicated, in the wrong place, or carrying a To Do column too long to face. Cut columns, move it, or shrink To Do to this week only.

Common mistakes

Treating the limit as a suggestion. A fourth card "just for a minute" is how Doing fills back up to six. Park something first.
Writing projects instead of tasks. "Kitchen" can't be done in one sitting, so it sits in Doing for weeks. Split it into tasks.
Too many columns. Seven columns look organised and take ages to maintain. Start with three.
Clearing Done too soon. Clearing it daily throws away your progress. Clear it weekly, after you've looked at it.
Forgetting Waiting. Tasks blocked by someone else clog Doing. Give them their own column and a date.

If this doesn't work

Give it two weeks. If you never look at the board, move it. If you keep breaking the limit, lower it. If the board feels like one more thing to manage, shrink it to a single sticky note headed "Doing" with two lines, and build up from there.

Your head is for working on things, not storing them. That's the central idea of Book 1 of The ADHD Workshop Series by Thomas Whitcho, Your Brain Is a Workshop, Not a Warehouse.

This article shares practical planning strategies, not medical advice. If trouble organising or finishing tasks is affecting your work, health or relationships, talk to a doctor or qualified health professional about ADHD assessment and support.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

What is a To Do, Doing, Done board?

It's the simplest kanban board: three columns, one task per card or sticky note. Cards start in To Do, move to Doing when you start them, and move to Done when finished, so you see your workload and what's in progress at a glance.

What is the WIP limit in personal kanban?

It's the maximum number of cards allowed in your Doing column at once. The Personal Kanban site suggests about two to three for one person. When Doing is full, you finish or park a task before starting a new one, which cuts down on half-finished work.

Is personal kanban good for ADHD?

Some people with ADHD find it helpful because the board keeps tasks visible instead of relying on memory, and the WIP limit makes you choose a few things to focus on. We couldn't find studies testing it in ADHD specifically, so treat it as a practical tool, not a treatment.

Should I use a paper board or an app?

Start with paper if you work in one place, because a board on the wall is hard to ignore. Use an app such as Trello, Todoist or Notion if you work in several places or share tasks. Or combine them: keep dates and repeats in the app and today's Doing cards on paper.

What's the difference between a kanban board and a to-do list?

A to-do list shows what needs doing. A kanban board also shows what's in progress and what's finished, and limits how much you can have on the go. That limit is the main difference.

What should I do when my kanban board gets out of date?

Do a quick reset: move everything in Doing back to To Do, clear Done, bin cards that no longer matter, add anything missing, then pull one card into Doing and start it. It takes about 15 minutes.