Continuous improvement is something that works wonders when you apply it to yourself. When you apply it to the business you work for, its results become better. When you apply it to yourself, your ability to tackle bigger and more impactful improvements increases.
To do this, you need a finely-tuned “engine” – your own capabilities, efficiency, and mindset. The secret isn’t a radical overhaul, but the consistent application of principles from the world of business and manufacturing, specifically Lean and Kaizen. These powerful approaches aren’t just for factory floors; they are blueprints for a life of personal continuous improvement.
The Personal Power of Lean Thinking
Lean thinking is all about maximising value while minimising waste. In your personal and work life, “value” is whatever helps you achieve your goals and live a fulfilling life (including family time and career progress), and “waste” is anything that gets in the way. By becoming a personal lean practitioner, you streamline your everyday processes, reduce friction, and free up precious time and energy for the things that matter most.
The first step is identifying and driving out the eight wastes from your daily routines:
- Defects: Mistakes in your work, typos in emails, or having to redo a task because of a lack of focus.
- Overproduction: Creating too many unneeded documents, inviting too many people to meetings, or sending emails that aren’t necessary.
- Waiting: Sitting in traffic unnecessarily (can you change your commute time?), waiting for a slow computer (is it time for an upgrade or a clean-up?), or waiting for meetings to start (do you even need the meeting?).
- Non-used talent: Not leveraging your strengths, or spending time on tasks someone else could do better or faster.
- Transportation: Unnecessary movement, like walking back and forth multiple times because you didn’t gather all necessary items for a task.
- Inventory: Excess clutter in your to do list, too many unread reports, or an overloaded email inbox, all of which create mental burden.
- Motion: Unnecessary physical movement within a task, like inefficient desk layout.
- Extra-processing: Using a complex spreadsheet for a task that a simple list would suffice for or adding unnecessary steps to a chore.
Embrace Kaizen: The Power of Small Steps
Driving out waste doesn’t happen overnight. It’s an ongoing effort of making small, incremental improvements daily – a practice known as Kaizen. The core philosophy of Kaizen is that even the tiniest positive change, consistently applied, leads to significant improvements over time.
- Start small: Instead of aiming to “complete that project today,” try “I’ll get one task off the project plan ticked off”.
- Make it a habit: Small, simple habits are easier to maintain and build upon. The consistency is key to not breaking the chain of improvement.
- Involve yourself: Just as in business, you should be on the constant lookout for identifying improvement opportunities.
Harnessing Cause and Effect, Pareto, and Productivity Monitoring
To effectively practice Kaizen and eliminate waste, you need to be strategic.
- Be conscious of cause and effect: For every issue in your life, understand its root cause. Why are you always late? Why do you have so many improvement loose ends to deal with? Addressing the cause, not just the symptom, ensures lasting improvement.
- Use the Pareto Principle: Often called the 80/20 rule, this principle suggests that roughly 80% of your outcomes come from 20% of your efforts. Identify the 20% of your activities that yield the most value and prioritise them. Conversely, identify the 80% of wasted effort that produces only minor results and work to eliminate it.
- Monitor your productivity: You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Track how you spend your time, measure the results of your new habits, and use this data for self-assessment. Tools, apps, or even a simple notebook can help you stay transparent with yourself about your performance.
The End Goal: Building Your Engine
The ultimate point of all this isn’t just to be busy or more efficient for efficiency’s sake. The goal is to build your personal “engine” – your capacity, resilience, and effectiveness – so you can do better things and handle bigger challenges.
By eliminating personal waste, you create focus and free up resources for high-value pursuits. This allows you to take on that promotion, start a new strategic project, be more present for your loved ones, or simply have more peace of mind. Personal continuous improvement is a life strategy, empowering you to live a more intentional, impactful, and fulfilling life. Start your Kaizen journey today and engineer a better you.
