# Merging Kanban and JD **URL:** \ **Category:** System expansion\ **Created:** [March 2, 2026, 11:49pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/merging-kanban-and-jd/2885 "2026-03-02T23:49:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fd93](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/fd93/32/1932_2.png) [@fd93](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/fd93)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 11:49pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/merging-kanban-and-jd/2885/1 "2026-03-02T23:49:53Z")
I usually have various projects on the go at any given time - mostly either code or articles. To manage the workflows for them, I use kanban boards. I have two main ones: projects and writing. Because I’m a heavy Neovim user and I like to keep my things plain-text so they’re easy to backup, I use a file system based approach for organizing my kanbans which [I describe here](https://fd93.me/minimal-kanban), and which I operationalize using my [plainban](https://codeberg.org/fd93/plainban) project. For example, my writing kanban looks like: ```plaintext 01 Icebox -- abcd-article-a.md -- def1-article-b.md 02 Prioritized 03 Draft 04 Edit 05 Ready for distribution 06 Distribution 07 Done -- cool-article-a.md -- lame-article-b.md 08 Cancelled 09 On hold ``` I’ve recently moved to using JD to organize most of my notes. At the moment I have a layout which looks like: ```plaintext 10-19 Creative ----- 11 Projects -------- 11.17 Writing Kanban 20-29 Admin ----- 25 Money ``` And then, within 11.17 I nest the structure above. This seems like an okay solution, but I don’t love it because each item within the kanban could plausibly live somewhere completely different in the JD hierarchy. I.e. an article like ‘using beancount for fun and profit’ which is in draft could live either in 11.17 Writing Kanban / 03 Draft or somewhere in 25 Money. Wondering if anyone has ideas on how to synthesize these systems, or even if they’re possible to synthesize? The system extension / breaking the rules articles are suggestive, but I’m not quite there yet. Edit: Realized that on UNIX operating systems this can probably be overcome through use of either [symlinks](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/symlink.7.html) or [hard links](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_link); you would link from a kanban ticket to the desired final file location and work by moving links between directories in the kanban. But doing this does seem to violate at least the spirit of JD. ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2026, 6:07am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/merging-kanban-and-jd/2885/2 "2026-03-06T06:07:57Z")
This sort of thing is always tricky: using some thing _in the system_ to manage something _about the broader system_. It’s okay to do: I think it’s best to draw a mental box around `11.17`. When you’re there you’re _in the kanban_. That it might then relate to other things in your system – fine.