Set WIP limits per pipeline stage (solo

Set work-in-progress limits for each pipeline stage (typical solo creator: Draft—3, Review—2, Polish—2) and do not start new items in a stage until existing items advance, to prevent attention fragmentation and increase throughput.

When This Fires

When setting up a personal production pipeline (Move outputs forward through pipeline stages…)
When pipeline stages accumulate items that never advance
When you have 10+ items "in progress" but none near completion
Complements Work the most downstream pipeline stage first — Deliver… (downstream-first) and When the bottleneck is waiting, not processing — reduce… (Little's Law) with the structural mechanism that limits accumulation

Common Failure Mode

Unlimited WIP: starting every new idea as a draft, accumulating 15 half-finished items that each receive occasional attention but none receive enough to complete. The pipeline is full but nothing flows through it. The feeling is "I'm working on so many things!" while the reality is "Nothing is getting done."

The Protocol

(1) Set WIP limits for each pipeline stage. Starting points for solo work: Draft=3, Review=2, Polish=2. (2) Track items per stage on a visible board (physical kanban, Trello, or a simple list). (3) When a stage is at its limit, do not add new items. Instead, advance existing items downstream (Work the most downstream pipeline stage first — Deliver…). (4) New ideas go on a backlog, not into active WIP. The backlog is unlimited; active stages are not. (5) Adjust limits based on experience: if items in a stage consistently wait because you can't process them fast enough, reduce the limit. If a stage is always empty, you might increase the upstream limit slightly. The goal is steady flow, not maximum utilization.