I read more books using Kanban 📚

As a kid I have been obsessed with reading. I read a lot and a variety of different books. Then, as I started to stumble into computer games and other forms of digital content consumption, such as Video Streaming and Social Media, my book throughput went from a few books a month to one at most.

TL;DR — the lack of books worth reading is not the problem. It is rather our approach to reading. Visualisation and prioritisation are key to read more. Kanban is just one framework to achieve exactly this.

Problem with reading

Although I quit gaming a few years ago my reading obsession did not spark again. And even if it did — it only lasted for a few weeks. There was simply too much stuff going on elsewhere and I could not focus on reading the way I would have liked to.

What frustrated me the most, was that the lack of books not being the reason. It was simply my lack of focus and/or organisation hindering me to read. A lot of people in my close social environment also experienced the same kind of issues and I am pretty sure you also know what I am talking about.

I did read books from time to time — but only if I really forced myself to do so. I got a lot of book recommendations, but I sadly lost track of most. At that time I had no collection of books i wanted to read.

Approach #1 — Notes App

Idea

The idea to keep track of books, I wanted to read, came during an intense after work run with a colleague. He suggested so many books at and I did not want to rely on my memory this time. That’s why I wrote them down.

I started with creating a checklist through my smartphones notes application. As soon as I stumbled across a compelling book/paper I added a new entry to the list. When I finished reading I just ticked off the check box besides the respective book. That simple routine provided enough value for me to continue adding books.

Pros

• Adding books is quick and straight-forward
• There is no extra configuration/application needed
• Little overhead in time for managing your readlist
• Better than no list at all

Cons

• It is quite challenging to maintain structure
• Finding books gets slower as your list grows
• There exists no way of prioritisation

My readlist grew faster than I could read books which really overwhelmed and did not help to focus on reading. I calculated that I added approxiamtely 150 pages per day to the list. This left me thinking — okay, fine then i only have to read more than 150 pages a day.

It’s the logical thing to conclude but not viable in practice. It just does not make a sense to spend 2–3 hours a day reading to satisfy such a stupid goal.

Approach #2 — Read Priority Queue

Idea

In order to combat the ever-growing number of books on my list I came up with the idea to prioritise the books on my readlist. As this exceeded my notes applications capabilities I opted to implement a small and hacky CLI tool to do the Job.

A Command Line Interface (for all the non-tech folks out there) is just a simple tool allowing you to interface via your computers terminal. A terminal is the old character based interactions method that stems from pre-graphical user interface times that still sticks around.

You can imagine a priority queue as a bunch of books each having a number (priority) assigned to them — e.g. by sticking a post it on its cover. You then just ask the priority queue for the next book and it will respond with the book with the highest number (priority) attached to it.

The simple rpq CLI supports the following Commands:

• rpq add Quantum Kumar 10 — adds the given book with priority 10
• rpq delete Quantum Kumar — deletes the given book
• rpq close Quantum Kumar — marks the given book as closed
• rpq get — returns the book with the highest priority
• rpq list — lists all entries (-p for priorities, -o to order them)

Read Priority Queue CLI — list all books with their read status

Pros

• Management of Books (Adding/Updating/Deleting) kept simple
• Books finally could be prioritised
• Finding Books became easier
• CLIs are fun

Cons

• Only works on my local machine (did not implement a mobile interface)
• Reprioritisation is hard and time-consuming

You would not need to implement your own tool to accomplish a read priority queue. I’m pretty sure there exists a notes app on steroids capable enough for the job.

Luckily there exists another proven solution to the priority queue already established in production, logistics and most recently also Software Engineering.

Quick and dirty intro to Kanban — 看板

I just want to briefly introduce you to the basics of Kanban to better understand the readlist approach #3.

Kanban has been invented at Toyota in 1947 by Taicichii Ohno in order to better control the production flow and minimize warehouse stock. Some aspects have been adopted in Software Engineering. The most important Kanban core principles are the following:

• Visualise your Workflow — e.g. via a Kanban board
• Limit your work in progress (WIP) — e.g. work on a maximum of n tasks
• Measure your flow — how long does it averagly take to finish a task

Approach #3

I know that Trello is not a full-blown Kanban board (sadly), but it was the most suitable tool for my needs I could find.

Idea

I currently use Trello to organise my Kanban readlist. Books are my cards. Each card has labels assigned to them as this is the only method Trello provides to resemble Kanban. These labels represent a) the priority of a book (high/medium/low) and b) it’s swim lane (fictional/non-fictional). I defined the following columns:

• To Buy — Books I would like to read (the prioritised backlog so to say).
• Bought — Books I own, but have not read yet.
• In Reading — Books I currently read (max. 2: 1fictional + 1 non-fictional).
• Read — Books I have read, but have not reviewed.
• Archived — self-explanatory.

Kanban-like Trello readlist

Pros

• Decent visualisation your reading progress
• Easy management of your books (just drag and drop)
• Trello does provide a Web and mobile App
• Your readlist is sharable now

Cons

• Trello does not implement swimlanes
• There exists no simple/automatic filter to order books by priorities
• Labels are a good starting point, but it is hard to use them right and for me the might be unnecessary overhead
• No automatic stats

Conclusion

I started to do the readlist thing in the beginning of June since then I have read a technical and a fictional book concurrently. I walked my way through a total of 7 books with over 2500 pages.

I am still looking to improve my readlist. It is sufficient enough to visualize my progress and organise my books.

I look forward to migrate a more minimalistic solution in the future. I also elaborate on methods utilizing automatic book ordering — Let’s call it readlist 4.0 :)

One of my recent thoughts is to incorporate an interface similar to CLI-based one, but as a Telegram-Bot as I already organise most of my workflows and processes in that way. Stay tuned!

Let me know if may thoughts helped you or how you implemented your reading routine. Feel also free to hit me up if you have any book recommendations.

Cheers,

Chris