Continuous improvement at home

At one point, my sister and I both held positions that involved Lean methods at our job. We were on the same wavelength because we looked at things in our homes through a Lean lens. We often joked about how we "5S'd" the garage or created FIFO inventory management (first in first out) in the kitchen cupboards. Thinking this way was automatic and effortless for us once we saw the results at work so it only made sense to use what we learned around the house. It sounds rigid and stuffy to live like this, but its really just a more systematic way of proactively managing household tasks.

As a result of her family's scheduling confusion, missed appointments, and late bill payments, my sister posted a customized calendar in her kitchen with a 3x3 square for each day, large enough to accommodate a color coded post it note. This almost completely eliminated their problems. It looked almost like this one by Tim McMahon, blogger of A Lean Journey:

Photo courtesy of: http://www.aleanjourney.com/2011/05/lean-at-home-my-visual-schedule.html

Effective Lean efforts are visual and intuitive. One should be able to understand the visual cues with very little explanation or training, so it makes perfect sense that a family could use some of these tools to teach young kids and keep them involved.

When my repeated searches for other ideas about how to be Lean at home turned up very little, I wondered why. Perhaps its because the ideas are already out there, on HGTV or on Hoarders, and are just not being labeled Lean? Whatever the reason, I was happy to find Crisp's blog post Agile@Home-simplifying life using agile and lean principles. I especially enjoyed this annotated collage:

http://blog.crisp.se/2012/05/02/henrikkniberg/agilehome

The picture of the little girl washing dishes and choosing clothes from the piles are supposed to represent waste: work in progress and overproduction. The trip planning and homework chart are meant to track progress and visually lay out needs and scheduling intentions. The Kitchen Value Stream Map is a nice representation of how a process might be carried out in the kitchen. I'm not suggesting that every aspect of home life needs a set of work instructions but it might be worthwhile to give it a try on a small scale project. We can all think of something that needs improvement at home and as we've discussed before, Lean is all about small changes and continuous improvement.

If you are anything like me, most of the cleaning/rearranging projects that weigh on us are on the back burner until the day when we have more time or extra money to invest in organizational accessories. Most of the time, however, it is better to take that initial first step and do something. More often than not, you'll be motivated to keep going or pick up when you have the next opportunity. That's what I really enjoyed about my work on Lean initiatives in the factory. When you feel like you've accomplished something and can see and enjoy the results of your efforts, it perpetuates brainstorming and helps keep us engaged.