What are your office whiteboard tips and tricks?
November 21, 2013 6:57 PM   Subscribe

I just got a 3' x 4' (91 cm x 121 cm) whiteboard installed in my office. And I can't think of a single way to use it. Any ideas?

I have been happily doing my job for years without a whiteboard, so am not sure how to integrate it in to my worklife. In general, I use my email inbox as a to-do list. Appointments and recurring tasks are on my Outlook calendar with reminders. When I get really swamped at work (every few months), I create a formal to-do list in Word. The whiteboard is placed so that visitors in my office could clearly read whatever is on it.

How do you use your personal whiteboard?
posted by whitewall to Work & Money (16 answers total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
Use it as a Kanban board. Make 3 columns: to do, doing, done. Then write your tasks on small post-it notes. Stick them on the board and move them to appropriate columns as necessary. Since this board is visible to others, it will have the added bonus of letting people know what you're working on.
posted by yawper at 7:12 PM on November 21, 2013 [10 favorites]


Mostly we use it for collaboration. Sketching out ideas or concepts. Once in a while I'll use it the same way but on my own.
posted by pyro979 at 7:21 PM on November 21, 2013


Most people where I work use it as an impromptu discussion tool. Everybody seems to communicate better when they can sketch it out.
posted by Tandem Affinity at 7:29 PM on November 21, 2013


I had it as a calendar for everyone to see easily - so not just me, but my team and my bosses team for crossover stuff. It meant anyone ducking in to see me on a Wednesday could see that I was at an event, or my assistant was on leave and so on.

I also had lists and things like that up there.

Occasionally quotes or other inspirational pro stuff - not randomised or general, but about our specific industry and processes we used. Calls for papers and things would go up as well, and rolling task dates.

It worked because I had a small team and it was part of our process to update and redo the whiteboard. It falls apart at home because I'm the only one using it and it's out of the way (and too small for a monthly update).
posted by geek anachronism at 7:44 PM on November 21, 2013


I use mine with my team so I have an overview of what my direct reports are working on. Most of the time though I use it for sketching out options with team members. The highlights are a useful way of showing my boss what we are doing.
posted by arcticseal at 8:44 PM on November 21, 2013


I use mine to keep track of the gross outline of my to-do list, and also nightly to put up reminders of little unfinished tasks I need to pick up with the next morning that isn't necessarily appropriate for the to-do list ("grab X for quick chat", "finish updating references for Peds manuscript"). So the big picture and the little details but not the in-between or routine stuff.

Our research nurses use theirs as the informal way to track enrollment in our studies. We have formal databases, of course, but just having the consecutive study entry number and the stage the patient's at for multi-visit studies gives the nurses (and other staff, like me) an immediate check on where we're at in terms of recruitment and completion without having to expose sensitive information - oh, so X participants were/are enrolled, 2 have withdrawn, 4 have yet to be scheduled, Y are on visit 1, 2, completed, and so on.
posted by gingerest at 9:05 PM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


To-do list. I used to use my email inbox as you do, but found that having a globally-writable to-do list was, um, less than optimal.
posted by bac at 9:10 PM on November 21, 2013


Although I enjoy playing with electronic gadgets, it feels nice to be able to manipulate a physical calendar, so I like to use a whiteboard calendar. With age, whiteboards become harder to erase, so I avoid writing on my board, which has a pre-printed monthly grid. I use a combination of sticky notes and colored magnets to create an easily updated calendar: small red magnets mark Sunday columns for the current month and orange magnets mark Wednesday columns. Family members can place and remove sticky notes on the appropriate squares. This arrangement might also work in a small office as well.
posted by juifenasie at 9:18 PM on November 21, 2013


In large letters:
"A safe workplace is no accident!"

"Days since last accident: N"

Or a list of your employees names in order, where the order is meaningless. Change order periodically.

That's a good place to start at least.
posted by pkingdesign at 9:33 PM on November 21, 2013 [4 favorites]


Seconding the Kanban board idea. It is really a powerful way to get a visual overview of where you stand in your workflow.

Sometimes, tasks need to be broken into sub tasks that are really disparate. I found the printing out these chef style cards from David Seah and combining with the Kanban board is enough to get through any days at work.
posted by theobserver at 10:02 PM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


I write aphorisms or snippets of song lyrics across the top of mine.
posted by Bruce H. at 11:25 PM on November 21, 2013


I use it to track the next step for projects, sketch out UIs and information relationships, and keep information that I need that doesn't really belong anywhere - fixes that I'm waiting on, documents that eventually need to be rewritten, meetings that need to be scheduled closer to the meeting date. So, things from the 'important but not urgent' quadrant, pretty much.

And drawings of dinosaurs. Lots of dinosaurs.
posted by punchtothehead at 5:02 AM on November 22, 2013


When I had mine - I would just put up important conference/training/meetings (name, date, location).
I also used it for quarterly/annual report due dates.
Doodles as well.
posted by KogeLiz at 5:04 AM on November 22, 2013


I use my for big-picture thinking if I'm drafting something complex. It allows me to stop thinking about word choice and the like and focus on the structure of the document.
posted by craven_morhead at 7:16 AM on November 22, 2013


Nth the Kanban* board— it's a great way to keep yourself and colleagues abreast of where your workload and progress is. 3x4 is a fairly large board though so you probably have room to leave a free space to the side or below for sketching or other notes that need to be visible, instead of putting them on sticky notes stuck to your screen or desk.

* which I didn't know the name of until just now
posted by a halcyon day at 8:22 AM on November 22, 2013


I mostly use mine for tasks with deadlines. It serves as a backup to the digital calendars / reminder system and it's helpful to see everything at once. Also: Kanban board
posted by exogenous at 10:24 AM on November 22, 2013


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