Whiteboards as an aid to productivity

[CoolBee]

I work from home now and invested in a large whiteboard (unfortunately not as huge as I wanted as they were out of stock!) a few months back. I love it, it boosts my productivity no end, if I have a client at home, instead of feeding back verbally what they say, I use it to write up what they say - maybe in 'mind map' style and their minds explode with new insights. I use it for planning, all sorts. I keep a standard daily tick list down the right hand side and use the rest for my scribble.

In my last corporate place of work, we were in big open plan offices with zero wall space and had nowhere at all to work out options, plans, make links between different things, blast out ideas, brainstorm etc other than by booking one of 3 meeting rooms in advance, so no sponteneity. I was forced to do anything like that on A3 pieces of paper sitting at a 'breakout' table in the back of the office or at my desk.

Since getting my home whiteboard, I realise that the lack of availability of a whiteboard in my last job had a detrimental impact on being able to do the best job I could (though I was pretty darn good anyway!) and probably on a lot of other people in posts requiring deep thought.

Anyway, purpose of my post, I am writing an article on the whiteboard as an aid to productivity and what to get the thoughts of you good people! What are your experiences?

(If you use a blackboard, that's just as relevant, anything you can scribble on 'large' and rub out easily!)

[FreelanceWanderer]

CoolBee, for years I used two big whiteboards. One was a calendar of interviews (I'm a magazine writer). I would draw a grid for two weeks, write in the numbers for the days of the month, and fill in my interview times with red erasable marker.

I also had a bigger whiteboard -- one half was used to keep track of my article deadlines, and the other half was for miscellaneous notes, such as doctor appointments, etc.

But then, this past May, I started renting an outside office and never felt like lugging my whiteboards there. So I started using iCal (the Mac calendar) to record interviews, appointments, and deadlines. I actually find it a lot more convenient than the whiteboards, because I have access to my schedule even when I'm not in the office.

However, whiteboards sound like a great tool for brainstorming. I'll have to try that.

FW

Write for Magazines: Write for Magazines

[Daffy Duck]

As a software engineer, I have a soft spot in my heart for whiteboards. We use many large ones where I work to go over use cases and software design. I heard somewhere that Google's break room has a huge whiteboard wall.

[JaredR]

I have a 7-day whiteboard in my room that allows me to plan out my week. Very handy.

[FreelanceWanderer]

Daffy, a whiteboard wall sounds awesome! I wish I could do that for brainstorming, but my office has too many windows (poor me ;-).

Another thing you can do is paint a wall with chalkboard paint. In fact, that gives me a great idea for my son's room when he's old enough to wield chalk.

FW

Write for Magazines: Write for Magazines

[Deergirl]

I love white boards. They are awesome. And yes, it's great to get an overview what projects you are working on or deadlines. But, if you are a doodler like me, you'll also find that there isn't anything better to doodle on that white boards. A quick doodle when bored, a sketch before making a webdesign, another quick doodle just for fun,...

[VIPFaktor]

I saw this idea with whiteboard wall somewhere, some guy has described whole procedure for converting a wall into whiteboard, with all the materials necessary, etc. I'll need to find it again when I move out.

Edit: Oh... I see how old this thread is now. Just clicked CoolBee's link in sig and followed link on his latest post on the blog without looking at the dates.

[rodie151]

White boards are the way forward no doubt. They just increase productivity so much.

[jamesbiz]

yeah, sorry. You are not productive until you turn every wall in your room into a whiteboard...
Wall Boards - US Markerboard

[Talkofthatown919]

i was thinking about doing this getting a whiteboard to put beside my computer desk. I will be getting me one tommrrow.

[Nyx]

Whiteboards are awesome.

Its visual and when discussing problems, it puts everyone on the same page - ever attended a meeting where people just throw in stuff even though it is not related?

It helps to track the progress of our discussion and eventually produce the action items.

[Brutha]

Daffy, a whiteboard wall sounds awesome! I wish I could do that for brainstorming, but my office has too many windows (poor me ;-).

Glas works just as well as whiteboards.

[Scooter]

I am an engineer and live my life on whiteboards. I can draw, design, schedule erase and redraw until the idea in my head is somewhat a reality on the board. The frustration I had was converting that to some distributable form until I found this
Whiteboard Photo Software

I am not selling it but if any of you need a way to copy your whiteboard, this is is. I have used the software for close to 10 years now and copied and distributed thousands of drawings. I estimate it saved me 10s of thousands of dollars in visio redraw time

To the OP, I cannot live without them. I have one in my Garage, In my home and work office, in every conference room and in the classroom where I teach SCUBA.

[Doku]

Gotta say that I love whiteboards as well. At my last job, we had two large whiteboards that we would wheel around. When I started my own company, I did it on a shoestring, so I went to Lowes or Home Depot, can't remember which... bought a lot of shower-board, liquid nails adhesive. Cost me about 100 bucks. I completely lined my office in the stuff.. all 4 walls. I have a todo list one one wall, one that I use for brainstorming, one that I use for whatever, and one that I use for semi-long term notes.

Think about it... melamine shower board is about 15 bucks for an 8 foot by 4 foot sheet. A tube of liquid nails is about 5 bucks... so, for twenty bucks, you can either buy a whiteboard the size of your monitor, or a four foot wide section of wall from floor to ceiling.