Clean, Control And Change Your Life The Kaizen Way

An ancient Chinese proverb goes "A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step."

Kaizen is a way of upgrading yourself. To practice it, you begin with one tiny step, and go on from there. Kaizen means "improvement" in Japanese, and it can mean self-improvement for you.

There are five main points to the Kaizen framework:

A. Tidiness or Sieiri
B. Having things in order or Seiton
C. Being clean or seiso
D. A standard procedure for clean-up or seiketsu
E. Maintaining discipline or shitsuke

Stick with this frame work and you will be successful.

Breaking a persistent bad habit or acquiring a positive new one is tough, as all our shattered New Year's resolutions can attest. If you know someone who's tackled a major life change like quitting smoking or losing weight, they would probably agree that it's done not all at once, but one smoke or one calorie at a time. Small changes strung together add up to surprising results. Kaizen is a tool that can help you effect change both in your personal life, and in your career.

Those who succeed in achieving their goals will likely tell you that they did it because they made small changes over time. These small changes led to success because new habits were formed. For example, let's say your goal is to reduce clutter in your home. You could start by spending 5 minutes a day going through your mail and immediately tossing what you don't need.

Focused practice leads to results. Making one small change over time makes all the difference. Anyone who has ever made a New Year's resolution and failed knows this: it's hard to make big changes. For example, let's say your goal is to reduce clutter in your home. You could start by spending 5 minutes a day going through your mail and immediately tossing what you don't need.

Ponder the unsavory habits you might have: maybe you began eating a Danish every morning and currently you are 30 pounds overweight. Fad diets probably won't help you, but substituting an apple for a Danish, as time goes by, will help you.

In the workplace, Kaizen has practical applications. It can seem overwhelming to tell workers "be efficient." Kaizen shows how. For example, I saw a poster at a supermarket of tasks that workers can do with a spare five minutes: straighten the counters, wipe the counters, etc. It all adds up. Let's say you need to learn a new software package for your job. Spend just 10 minutes a day and you'll be on your way to learning it. The best way to learn a language is not to study 2 hours a week, but 20 minutes a day.

Challenge yourself with some problems:
In what way do you wish to become better? What goals do you wish to set for yourself? How will you know when you have completed what you aspired to do?

An old paradox asks how do you eat an elephant, with the correct response being, one bite at a time. Figure out what it is you want to make headway with, then set about accomplishing this!

An ancient Chinese proverb goes "A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step." In Japanese, Kaizen means "improvement", and it's improvement that is the key. Begin with the basics, and try to achieve better results, refining and trying again.

Steve Wilheir is a project management consultant and expert in Kaizen. If you like the Kaizen concept, Learn more about What is Kaizen?

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