A Kanban board for home: household admin and home projects on one screen
A Home & Life board for the person who carries the household in their head: the columns, the labels, and the honest limits (boards are personal, not shared).
The short answer. A home Kanban board is one board called Home & Life with columns for This Week, Soon, Waiting, and Done, a card for every errand, repair, appointment, and project step, and labels for the areas of the house. It turns the invisible mental load of running a household into something you can look at. Hense does this on iPhone, iPad, and Mac for free, with iCloud sync and no account. One honest limit up front: Hense boards belong to one Apple account, so this is a board for the person who runs the household, not a shared family board.
The mental load has no screen
Most households run on one person’s memory: the dentist appointment, the leaking tap, the birthday present, the form for school, the plumber who has not called back. It works until it does not, and when it fails it fails as guilt, because everything that was forgotten was something you “should have remembered.”
The fix is not remembering harder. It is getting the list out of your head and onto a surface that shows status. A to-do list gets you halfway; a board gets you the rest, because household work is full of waiting (on tradespeople, deliveries, other people’s replies) and a list has no way to show waiting.
The Home & Life board
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Soon | Everything you know about that is not this week: the renewal in March, the gutter cleaning, the gift for the birthday next month. |
| This Week | What you intend to do this week. Pulled on Sunday. |
| Waiting | Your part is done; someone else’s is not. The plumber, the refund, the RSVP. |
| Done | Finished. Cleared weekly. |
Add a fifth column, Doing, if you tend to start several things at once and want to see it. Five columns is the free limit in Hense.
Labels are the areas of the house or life, not the columns: Errands, Home (repairs and maintenance), Health (appointments), Kids, Money. Three labels are free per board; pick the three that carry the most cards, and use card titles for the rest, or unlock Pro for unlimited labels.
What becomes a card
The rule is: anything you would otherwise have to remember. Some examples from a real board:
- Errands: “Return the parcel,” “Pick up prescription,” with the receipt or the QR code attached to the card.
- Repairs: “Fix the leaky tap,” with a photo of the tap attached so the hardware-store trip is one card, not three.
- Appointments to make (not the appointment itself, which belongs in the calendar): “Book dentist for both kids.”
- Admin: “Renew car insurance,” with the due date set so it turns orange the day it is due and red after.
- Projects: the steps of a bigger thing. “Repaint the hallway” is not a card; “Choose paint color,” “Buy paint and tape,” “Paint Saturday” are.
For a big home project (a renovation, a move, a wedding), give it its own board with its own stages. The second board is still within the free limit of two.
The weekly reset, household edition
Sunday evening, ten minutes, ideally with a cup of something:
- Clear Done. This is the column that answers “what did I even do this week.” Look at it before you delete it.
- Chase Waiting. For each card: still fairly waiting, send the follow-up now, or give up and move it back.
- Pull from Soon into This Week. Be realistic. Household weeks have less free time than they look like they have.
- Add anything new that has been sitting in your head since last Sunday. The act of writing it down is most of the relief.
Setting it up in Hense
In Hense
- Create a board called “Home & Life” and pick a warm color you will recognize in the sidebar.
- Add the columns: Soon, This Week, Waiting, Done (and Doing if you want it).
- Create three labels (edit the board with ⌘E or a long-press, then Labels): for example Errands, Home, Health.
- Brain-dump into Soon. Every household thing you are carrying. Do not sort yet.
- Attach photos to repair cards (the broken part, the model number) from the photo library, and files to admin cards (the form, the quote) from Files. One attachment per card is free.
- Set due dates only where a date is real: renewals, deadlines, the day the return window closes.
- On iPhone, keep the board in paginated view and swipe to This Week when you are out; on Mac or iPad, do the Sunday reset with the whole board visible.
Honest limits: sharing, notifications, recurring chores
Three things people expect from a “home board” that Hense does differently, so you can decide with clear eyes:
- Boards are not shared. Hense syncs through your own iCloud account, and there is no account to invite anyone to. Two adults running one household can each keep their own board (each person’s own Apple Account), or one person runs the board and reads it out at the weekly reset. If you need a truly shared family list, Apple Reminders’ shared lists do that well, and it can sit beside Hense.
- No notifications. Due dates color the card (orange today, red overdue); the app does not buzz. Put hard appointments in Calendar; keep the work around them on the board.
- No recurring cards. Weekly chores can live as cards you move back after finishing, or, with Pro, copy a card. Many people find that recurring chores do not belong on the board at all; the board is for things that need deciding and tracking, not for brushing your teeth.
Frequently asked questions
What columns should a home Kanban board have?
Soon, This Week, Waiting, and Done, with an optional Doing column. Use labels for areas of the house (Errands, Home, Health) so you can filter, rather than making a column per area.
Can my partner and I share a Hense board?
No. Hense boards sync through one person’s iCloud account and there is no sharing or accounts. Each person can run their own board on their own Apple Account, and a shared Reminders list works well alongside Hense for a true joint list.
Is Hense free for a home board?
Yes. The free version includes 2 boards with 5 columns each, 3 labels per board, checklists, one attachment per card, drag and drop, board search, and iCloud sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Pro is a one-time $9.99 USD purchase, with no subscription.
Can I attach photos of things around the house to cards?
Yes. Add a photo from your library (the broken part, the paint swatch, the receipt) or a file from the Files app, and open it in place from the card. Free includes one attachment per card; Pro removes the limit.
Should chores go on the Kanban board?
Only chores that need deciding or tracking, such as a repair, an errand, or a seasonal job. Daily routines do not need a card, and they crowd out the things the board is good at.