Organize Your Life in Wheatbin with the Law of the Harvest

Editor’s note: this is a guest post from Jason Comely, creator of Wheatbin.

Got an idea you’d like to make into reality? Most of us do, including me. I think of ideas as seeds. Some of these seeds have potential to yield harvests, provided the conditions are right. I store my ideas in a free software application that I designed.

I call it Wheatbin. Let me tell you about it.

Wheatbin is project management software that combines Kanban methodology with the Law of the Harvest. It helps you sow, grow and harvest your hard work.

Wheatbin is free (open source) and easy to install on a server or shared-hosting plan. It has a mobile friendly design too, so you can access your files from a smartphone.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. As a Latter-Day Saint, you’re no doubt familiar with the Law of the Harvest (we reap what we sow). Kanban methodology? Maybe not, so here’s a brief primer.

Kanban Board

For MLH readers unfamiliar with Kanban, it’s a system that breaks big projects down into logical stages and tasks. Toyota invented it in the 1950’s and has been a key element of that company’s success.

In its simplest form, a Kanban board has three columns: “To Do”, “Doing” and “Done”. These stages coincide with farming: Sow, Grow and Harvest. As a task progresses from one stage to the next, you move it from one column into the other until it’s done.

Using Wheatbin

Using Wheatbin is as simple as that. Here’s the precise workflow:

Create a project. It can be short term client work or a long term personal goal.
Add a task into the Sow column. You can upload relevant files, make notes, add collaborators and more.
When you start work on the task, drag and drop the task into the Grow column.
Finished tasks move it into the Harvest column. Note: since the word “harvest” is both a verb and a noun, a task can be put there if you still need to collect your harvest (i.e. await payment from a client).

You can add other columns if need be. For myself, I have a Wheatbin column where I keep completed tasks and project assets I may need later.

Wheatbin can be a key tool in making your vision a reality. It gives you a topographical view of your project in progress – like an interactive aerial view map for a farmer. Everything is in front of you in a clear visual display.

That’s the gist of it. Wheatbin is simple but highly adaptable. And Wikipedia has a great page on Kanban, if you’d like to learn more.

Wheatbin is 100% free and available for download. Visit wheatbin.com for more information.