A Culture of Waste

Zero Lead Time Revisited

2011-08-13T15:00:00.003-05:00

Several months ago I put up a short paragraph about Zero Lead Time. It was too brief to be useful and yet, according to my site statistics, it is far and away my most widely read post. The range of available zero lead time products has expanded rapidly since then and I feel obligated to delve a little more deeply into the subject.

What Is Zero Lead Time?

From a lean perspective zero lead time means that you can get exactly what you need, exactly when you need it, in exactly the amount you need. Products and services with these characteristics allow both producers and consumers to carry no inventory. This removes all risk of producing large batches before defective products are identified. A consumer will only spend money exactly when they need to spend it, and the physical transportation costs are minimized. In essence it eliminates most of the seven types of Muda after the initial product creation.

What Are Some Zero Lead Time Products

Music - Downloadable digital music was the first zero lead time product to market and is quickly becoming the first to mature. Music has become a Long Tail industry. Thanks to innovators like Derek Sivers you can now find any song, no matter how obscure, with just a few clicks of a mouse. Derek's Book Anything You Want is a very good read if you want more insight into how this came about. Musicians worldwide now have multiple options for getting their work in front of fans who will pay them for it. If none of the multitude of companies promoting digital music are the right fit for an artist, they have the option of building their own site for relatively little expense and promoting it through social media. The only remaining gatekeepers in music are a musician's self-doubt and complacency.

Books - E-books and digital audiobooks are rapidly overtaking the print media market. While there will always be a place for small specialty book shops that cater to aficianados, the big national retailers are feeling the pressure. Borders has already closed its stores. Barnes and Noble just managed to get its Nook e-reader into production in time to capture 25% of the market and prevent a similar fate. Publishing houses are having to rethink their business models. Authors can now self publish electronic versions of their work or set their books up for print on demand. There are still some growing pains to be faced in this industry. The quality of self published work is varied. Writers are not necessarily editors. If self publishing authors are not rigorous in seeking reviewers prior to publication the quality of the work can be overshadowed by grammatical distractions. Markets are adaptable however and it is likely that freelance editing is a niche ready to explode.

Movies - The digital delivery options for movies and TV shows fall into two catagories and neither is truly without lead time yet. Streaming services like Netflix can give you instant access to thousands of movies, but you are limited by their current catalog. Amazon and iTunes allow you to download content and play them back without anchoring yourself to an internet connection. My recent experience with iTunes however (a six hour download time) suggests that they have a long way to go to meet the requirement of delivering it when I want it. However both of these models have significant advantages over running to the video store and paying late fees. YouTube has become a plaform for everyone (including my 5 year old son) to try their hand as a writer, actor or director

References - Throughout my education and for most of my career finding an obscure fact that I needed for a current project involved first finding, then paging through a massive volume on a dusty shelf. Invariably I would need to consider the time lapse between the edition that I had and the date of my investigation and adjust my calculations accordingly. Very often the pace of the advancement of the subject was greater than the pace of production for the latest revision of the reference material. With online references however this gap has been closed. Online references and knowledge bases like Wikipedia have vastly improved both the availability and the accuracy of reference materials. Now remote villages in India can access the same information as elite western universities, given a stable broadband connection.

Information - The business of data storage is quickly changing. As broadband networks expand, more and more people have access to rapidly growing cloud based data storage networks. With these services you can have access to all of your files anywhere in the world without a hard drive. What started with Dropbox and backup services like Carbonite has now expanded into Amazon's Cloud Drive and Apple's upcoming iCloud. From punch cards to flash media drives there has always been a need for portability of files, and we have certainly come a long way, but the immediate availability of unlimited storage with instant access will eventually eliminate the entire local data storage industry.

What's Next?

Products - While they are a long way off, there have been advances in 3D printing that now allow uploaded designs to be quickly turned into solid realities. Multiple individual components can be quickly assembled into more complicated functional devices. If you would like to glimpse the future of what distributed open source 3D printing could become, check out Makers by Corey Doctorow. The technology already works there are only cost barriers to proliferation.

Food (coming soon) - Amazing as it seems, through special cartridges it is now possible to program a meal and click print. Again the technology is not yet cost effective for mass productive for these 3D food printers, but in time, not only will you be able to get a meal in minutes, but you will also have a chance to customize the nutrient profile. See a video of one in action here.

Wrapping Up

The world is getting faster all the time. New technologies are allowing society to leapfrog over its first attempts at advancement. Imagine a digitally interconnected world that allows the next best thing to teleportation. That is the future of zero lead time.

A Reductionist's Philosophy

2011-05-16T19:14:00.000-05:00

"one does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity..." Bruce Lee

Stop for a minute and think of something big. Something huge. Something that makes other things move out of its way. Got it? OK now let me ask you a few questions about this enormous thing you have in mind. Is it quick and responsive and flexible? Is it easy to maintain? Can it support itself easily? Is it efficient in using resources?

The answer to all of these questions is probably no. Large things have lots of inertia. They cannot be quickly sent in a new direction. They cannot be halted quickly when it becomes clear the direction is wrong. They are often at risk due to their dependence on any number of supporting systems. Size is generally inversely proportional to efficiency when you take the whole into consideration. Large things can often do one thing very well while doing everything else very poorly.

Given these facts growth is actually a counterproductive strategy in life. Nothing, in the end, is too big to fail. Targeting growth is a recipe for failure in the long term. I have personal experience with those who have added too much weight to their frames, from either muscle or fat, who have begun to break down long before their time. I have worked for companies that were industry leaders when they were small and were forgotten when they grew too large. Large bodies of knowledge are slow to respond to new developments.

When what is required to maintain a body or lifestyle or a home or a family is greater than the its capacity to produce this input, its end is near. The only options are to shrink and suffer the pain required by this reduction, or to delay the inevitable by borrowing against an unknown future. The first is the only real option. The second assumes that somehow change will occur without an incentive.

It seems to me that large companies are beginning to fail and large homes are beginning to sit vacant and large people are facing tough choices and large vehicles are being parked and large debts incurred while delaying the pain of the inevitable downsizing will soon require painful repayment.

The New Fragility

2011-03-10T06:15:00.000-06:00

With the recent twitter fueled revolution in Egypt, stability does not quite mean what it once did. My perspective is not as broad as it should be, but it seems to me that this should scare more than just nations.  Many corporations are at risk of the same collapse given the right spark, and the spirit of change seems to be catching.

Is what happened in Cairo any different that what the American people did to GM when money got tight?  GM had been dictating to everyone they came into contact with for decades. Suppliers had to bend over backwards and try to do the impossible because of the power they weilded. Consumers had continued to pay rising prices because that was the required sacrifice to own a GM product. I was a victim myself two times over. I overvalued the brand. People did not demonstrate in the streets but they certainly stopped voting with their checkbooks, and an industrial icon went bust. Their fall was cushioned by a bailout or they would now be gone. Consumers who thought a new vehicle was required every year changed their minds quickly when the world went broke overnight. When the pain of sacrifice is greater than the pain of action people will be motivated to act to change their behaviors. Suddnely their daily drivers seemed fine for a few more years. I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but having worked as a supplier to GM, I can honestly say that I felt satisfaction not sympathy at their downfall.

This principle applies internally as well.  When the percieved pain of finding a new job is outweighed by the pain that is felt everyday coming to work, even the most stable workforce will evaporate. The limits to which a worker will allow themself to be pushed is a complicated equation based on their debt level, mobility, family requirements, and fear of starting over somewhere new. There is always a solution to that equation however. When the breaking point is reached there will be no warning, and the first few departures will often open the floodgates.

For me it really boils down to inclusion. In business, people want to feel that they are working with their company and not for it. That feeling allows workers to overlook many small problems and keep things moving forward when progress might bog down. They want to know that they are important. Every employee knows that a company needs to make money to survive, but as soon as money is prioritized above people, and ill considered labor cuts force the remainder to do more with less, the pressures begin to build and productivity declines. In other organizations the same principles apply. Even in government if the people do not feel that they are represented by the government either they must be intimidated into compliance or the government will change. In democratic countries this manifests itself with sweeping changes in party control. In authoritarian regimes it is usually much uglier.

If you lead an organization or even a family it is a good time to take a close look at how included everyone is feeling. It feels like there is a wave building that has the potential to sweep away many things that once seemed stable. Don't get washed away.

How Ignoring Conventions Can Simplify Your Life

2011-01-19T00:24:00.000-06:00

It's 12:00 and I am mad! I have just driven halfway across town on my lunch break for a quick workout and the entire parking lot is full. Not only that but there are two cars hovering for the next spots to become available. To add to the absurdity I can't even get out of the lot because it is one way and the person in front of me is waiting for someone trying to back out of a tight spot and is having a lot of problems pulling it off. I have already wasted too much time and will now have to head back to the office frustrated that I did not get my workout in. The worst part of it all is that I have only myself to blame. I was taking my lunch an hour and a half late.

Some of you may be saying, "Who takes lunch at 10:30?," but I can assure you making that small adjustment to your schedule will pay big dividends in reduced frustration in your life. At 10:30 you are squarely between the end of the morning rush and the beginning of the lunch rush. If you go to the gym, the equipment is virtually empty, there is plenty of parking, and you can still pick up a snack on the way back to work without having to wait in ridiculously long lines. Try it sometime and you will thank me.

Why am I bothering to tell you this story? Underlying my habit of taking an early lunch is a deeper principle that has helped me to eliminate a lot of useless waiting and frustration from my life; Questioning the motivation of conventions.

Why does everyone go to lunch sometime between 11:00 and 1:00? Because it is halfway through a standard eight hour workday. Because the standard is three meals a day and we love symmetry. Because that is when everyone else goes. Right? Wrong! I have decided that, for myself at least, none of these are a valid reason. The result is that my family has shifted our schedule back about 90 minutes and we no longer have to wait for a table at lunch or dinner. Since we eat our last meal of the day at 4:30 we have plenty of time to work off some of those calories by taking a walk after dinner, or getting the house picked up before bed, or playing super heroes until bath time. If we have some errands to run we are getting them taken care of while everyone else is eating, which means shorter lines at the grocery store and less crowding in the aisles.

The timing of meals is not the only example of this principle however. Here are five more ways that questioning conventions can save you time and money.

1. Skip the engagement ring - This one is controversial with the ladies but when you stop and think about why people drop ridiculous sums on a flashy diamond it is hard to come up with a good reason. If you are saying it is a "symbol of their love" right now, think about what that means. Would it be equally symbolic if a guy handed you a big stack of cash when he asked you to marry him? That is a little too close to long term prostitution for my taste. Also if you have ever tried to sell a ring back, unfortunately I have, you know that it is worth about 30% of what was paid for it. The money that you would have spent on a ring will very often cover the cost of a trip to the tropical island of your choice. I recommended taking the trip.

2. Don't be an early adopter - Nothing in life will save you as much money as patience. That new model of TV is awesome, but if you can be patient and wait a few months you will usually pay 50% less for it and it will still be awesome. The only benefit of having the latest and greatest is so you can tell everyone how cutting edge you are. Cool is expensive. If you can resist the urge to be the one who has the newest thing before everyone else you will come out way ahead financially.

3. Park in the first place you come to and walk to the door - Seriously, are you really saving any time by cruising around for ten minutes trying to get the perfect parking place? How many times have you gotten mad at someone for taking a parking place that you were trying to get to? Unless the weather is ridiculous a little walk will not kill you and, in the spirit of every little bit helps, may be good for you.

4. Don't "stock up" - Buying what you need for the next few days is a recipe for success. If you only have what you need for the meals you have planned then it is very easy to see when you need to head to the store again. Also you will throw away far less food in the course of a year. Nothing can hide in an empty fridge and things that can be seen get used. It is very hard for some people to see that buying in bulk is a bad thing. Humans seem to be programmed for just in case, not just in time. The downside of "stocking up" is that you need more storage for all of the excess, which means you need a bigger place to live, which means you are paying a lot more for housing. All of this so you can have lots of stuff stashed away, and half of the time you can't find it when you need it and go out and buy more because it is easier.

5. Don't buy things that you can borrow - Yes it is nice to have a book that you read once and liked and may read again someday, but 99% of the time you won't. If you had checked it out from a library you could have gotten the same result without the cost. Not only that but they will pay to store it on the shelves and it is always available to check out again. Tools can be checked out from most auto parts stores at no cost. Buying things that will only be used a limited number of times or at long intervals is just another manifestation of "stocking up". Resist the urge and you will have less clutter to manage in your life and more disposable income.Focus on doing things instead of having things.

What are some of the things that you do that defy convention and make your life easier? I would love to hear about them in the comments.

Eleven Books That Will Change Your Life in 2011

2011-01-01T07:48:00.000-06:00

I read a lot. In the last three years a lot of that reading has been focused on the Self Improvement genre. Just writing that makes me feel a little like I should be on a couch somewhere trying to understand why my childhood is the root of all of my problems. Self improvement as I see it though involves understanding how your own mind and body work, and how you can use that knowledge to make your life into the one you want to have instead of the one that you have. Of course that statement assumes that you are unhappy with at least some aspect of your life. If you are and are interested in changing a few things hopefully I can save you some time with the book list below.

1. The Four Hour Work Week - This book set a new standard for self improvement. If you want to become a renegade entrepreneur Tim can help you. If you just want to free up as much of your time as possible and free yourself to be anywhere you want to be he can help you with that too. If nothing else this book will convince you to challenge your assumptions and eliminate things in your life that are dragging you down. This is the book that got me started re-examining my life.

2. Outliers - All of Malcolm Galdwell's writing is worth reading but this one is particularly interesting. His analysis of success and successful people finds hard work, persistence, and timing to be the true recipe. Do you want to be world class at something? Spend 1000 hours of dedicated practice on it and you have a good shot regardless of your ability. Do you want to be a successful hockey player? If you were not born in the first three months of the year you have an uphill battle. Read the book if you want to understand that one.

3. How We Decide - This book woke me up to the reality that intuition is just another kind of thinking. There are processes that go on behind the scenes in our heads that are faster and more accurate than the ones we think we can control. Understanding the implications behind the neuroscience can forever alter how you look at the world and the sometimes confusing decisions that

4. Spark - I used to work out because I thought I needed to keep my body in shape. If things slid a little bit though, I did not sweat it too much. A little extra flab won't kill me, right? Then I read this book and found out that not exercising has serious effects on my brain as well. That gave me a whole new kind of motivation. Skipping is no longer an option.

5. The Four Hour Body - This is the newest book on the list and to be honest I have not read the whole book yet. What I have read however has blown away assumptions that I have had for years regarding what is required to take control of your physical appearance and performance. I am sure this one will have lots of haters, but they all have the option of not taking Tim's latest advice.

6. The Art of Non-Conformity - Chris Guillibeau is one of my heroes now. Anyone who drops out of high school as a sophomore because he was bored then proceeds to convince JuCo admissions that he really does not need a diploma to take classes, then repeats that trick a few times with the end result being two degrees by the time the rest of his class finished their senior year get my respect. His encouragement to rebel is irresistible.

7. Drive - Dan Pink turns the whole concept of motivation on its head in this book. It turns out that according to studies motivating people with rewards is a losing proposition. The real interesting part is that after you have read the book you will try to tell yourself that you knew it all along; that it is all very much common sense.

8. Tribes - Seth uses this little book to lay out why we need leaders not managers and how small, dedicated groups are changing the world. Then he invites you to become one and tells you how.

9. Linchpin - My favorite concept in this book is the "Lizard Brain" This is how Seth describes the fear of taking action to create something. Read the book and he will teach you to be indispensable.

10. That's Not What I Meant - Ever wonder why you get into an argument with your significant other every time you try to figure out where to eat? Have you ever been floored when someone reacts in a completely unexpected way to something that you have said? Do you get frustrated in conversations with people who simply will not let you get a word in? This book will help explain why these things happen.

11. Predictably Irrational - We are all irrational. Dan Ariely can prove it to you. The weird thing is you can know it but you still can't change it. This book can't give you control over your irrational behaviors, but at least it can help you to understand them a little better.

Do you have any to add to the list? Have you read the books and disagree? Let me know in the comments.

Ten Tips For Improving Through Limitation

2010-12-31T07:36:00.000-06:00

Have you ever tried to change a behavior and failed? Join the club. If this has not happened to you don't bother reading the real of this post and also quit lying to yourself. There is a lot of guilt associated with failing to change unwanted behaviors. So many success stories highlight the strength of will of those who are successful at losing weight, getting out of debt, quitting something cold turkey, etc. that there is an unstated implication that anyone who fails is lacking in fortitude. I have been there and wallowed in my own guilt when I have regressed. The truth is changing behavior is one of the hardest things in life to do. Failing to correct bad habits can lead quickly to wasted time and money and poor health. With this in mind, overcoming the difficulties of behavior change is crucial. As Chip and Dan Heath said in their excellent book Switch shaping the path can go a long way toward making a change. One of the most effective ways I have found to shape my path is to find a way to physically limit myself in a way that encourages the change that I want to make. Below are a few examples:

1. If you want to change your eating habits trade in the cooler you take your lunch in for a 6" X 6" Lock n' Lock container. If it does not fit in the container it does not go with you. Then get rid of all of the other lunchbox options in your home.

2. Take all of the large dinner plates out of the convenient cabinets and hide them away for special occasions. With only the smaller 8" plates ready to hand, you are limited to what can physically fit on a plate and thus eat less.

3. Tie the light switch in the laundry room to the outlet that powers your iron. When the light goes off the iron will shut off as well.

4. Set up an automatic savings account then forget about it.

5. Have all of your bills automatically paid by credit card, then have the credit card automatically pay itself off once a month.
* find a card with great mileage, points or cash back options you get a double bonus here

6. Install motion sensing lights in your kids rooms and you will save on energy and the frustration of following them around and shutting off lights.

7. Move to a smaller space when the opportunity arises. Nothing eliminates waste like downsizing. It eliminates the potential for buying "stuff" by requiring you to find space for every new purchase at the expense of getting rid of whatever is currently occupying that space. You will also save time cleaning up and maintaining your home.

8. Limit your dishes to what you need for one meal. Not only will you be forced to clean up after each meal before you can eat the next, but you will probably stop using your dishwasher because you will never have a full load to run.

9. Limit the number of hangars in your closet. When you run out of hanger space its time to donate some clothes to charity.

10. Buy several small laundry totes to replace one large hamper. When one of the small totes is full, take it to the laundry and wash a load of clothes. When the empty tote is full take it to your closet and put the clean clothes away. This simple visual system makes doing laundry a more frequent, but also more manageable task, and avoids massively unproductive "laundry days".

Try these and let me know in the comments if they worked for you. If you have ideas or examples of how to change behavior through physical limitation I would love to hear them.

Bragging a Little

2010-12-03T07:38:00.000-06:00

Normally I am a pretty modest sort of person, but I was really struck by my wife's post on her blog Wednesday. It was nice to get a look at some of the changes we have made from her perspective and I thought that I would link to it here.

Hidden Targets

2010-11-17T07:08:00.001-06:00

Have you ever noticed that when you start really recording your workout statistics you see a lot of nice round numbers? I find that I do three sets of 10 or run for 20 minutes a day at the same pace for weeks. Lately I have been thinking that this is a sign of laziness. If I was really trying to improve myself I should see some sets where I can only get 3 reps or 7. This would indicate that I am pushing myself to my limits and seeking to expand them. If you don't push the limits you will never improve in anything, and if you are not improving, someone out there is passing you by. This is true in athletic compettition or in business.

When you work toward improvement you should seldom see round numbers in your metrics. If you are working toward selling a thousand units of something and you consistently hit one thousand on the nose, you should look at changing some aspect of the target. You could try to sell the same thousand units, but reduce your cost by half. Maybe changing the timeline for getting those thousand units sold so you can free up more time for strategic planning, or finding new markets, or just forgetting about working and doing whatever you are passionate about doing.

Another instance of this is stagnation of progress. When your metrics level off just below your target it is a strong indication that there is an unstated acceptance of this level as a success. This is particularly seen when the initial goal is audacious. If you find one of these hidden targets you should start digging into things a little deeper to root out the problem and get moving again.

Tanking Up

2010-06-26T06:29:00.000-05:00

Reducing fuel costs is a summer tradition for many Americans. Air conditioners go on and gas prices go up. Articles abound in every form of mass media with suggestions about how to ratchet up the number of miles you can squeeze out of a full tank of gas. Using this gold standard to measure performance however overlooks some big opportunities to reduce your monthly spending.

Miles per gallon improvements are really minimal once you have already purchased a vehicle. The opportunities for reducing costs however are increased significantly if you shift your perspective away from MPG thinking. One of the biggest opportunities to reduce your fuel costs is getting beyond the assumptions that both your starting and end points for travel are fixed.

When I changed jobs recently I made an effort to find us housing as close to my new employer as possible while still meeting all of our other requirements. The result was a four mile one way drive that replaced my previous fifteen mile trip. It seems like a small thing, but the results are significant. I achieved a 73% reduction in fuel cost and a 40% reduction in travel time. To achieve this same fuel cost reduction I would have needed a 2010 Prius (50 MPG) and all of the costs that go along with it.

Since this first step I have upped the ante again and begun riding my bike to work. This has cut my fuel costs to zero (or very close, I am still driving in once every two weeks or so) and has still resulted in a time savings over my previous commute of 14%. In addition I have eliminated nearly five hours per week of gym time by getting my daily exercise during my ride to work.

Telecommuting is another good way to achieve the same or even better results, but good discipline and a career that does not demand your physical presence are required.

Living Lean

2010-06-25T11:37:00.000-05:00

I mentioned a while back that my family was downsizing our life to a small apartment. The results so far are great! Not only do we have less junk and more free time, but we are currently able to make both the rent and house payment without having to cut back on things that we enjoy. More walking, due to living near almost everything that we enjoy and elimination of some of the services that we never used have cut our costs more than we realized was possible. My truck has sat in the parking lot for all but three days in the past month, and I have ridden my bike to work. We get all of our entertainment through netflix on demand and the Wi-fi connection that is included with our lease. We have been eating a lot more fresh foods and have not "stocked up" once due to the limited space we have for storage. We seem as a family to be even more dedicated to continuing to eliminate the unnecessary. Our son does not quite have the philosophy down yet, he is only four, but my wife has truly embraced the concept and we have been making regular trip to donate things that we do not need. We truly use all of the space we have, and when the walls close in a bit we go outside and enjoy the sunshine and the grass and the sky. I almost wonder where this process will end. My wife told me about a story she read recently where someone eliminated theri life down to one north face backpack and wandered off into the world....sounds good to me!

Time Blindness

2010-06-24T11:31:00.000-05:00

The following is from a converstation I overheard two days ago:

(Some specifics have been modified to protect the guilty)

"Hey you know what we need is a thingamabob that can turn widgets into ultra widgets by changing the angle of the doohicky!"

"Yeah that would be great, but I tried that three years ago and they don't make it anywhere. Don't waste your time. You have a lot more important things to do."

"But it could increase our profit 200%? I know I can find it."

"I'm telling you its not out there. I would have found it. Forget about it."

You have probably been in this same situation when you have moved into a new situation and worked in close proximity with someone who has been doing similar work for a long time. Now if you do whatever it is anyway and it works you will have embarassed someone senior to you (read this as "made an enemy"), and if you don't you have taken the first step into the rut that everyone else has dug. The logic error that is inherent in this story is time blindness.

All things change over time. There is nothing static in the world. Everything from technology to the location of land masses to the words in a dictionary always have and always will be in flux. Forgetting this fact can lead to serious errors in judgement. Often elaborate structures of belief are built on the fragile evidence of one attempt far in the past. Simply questioning whether things might have changed over time can collapse the whole, and open new worlds of possibility and inquiry. Give it a try sometime and let me know how it works out.

Walking The Talk

2010-02-06T00:26:00.001-06:00

In about a week I will be dragging my family along on a real world experiment in lean living. In past posts I have discussed matching capacity to demand in living space. With this in mind we will be moving from a 2000 square foot house to a 900 square foot apartment. If this sounds crazy to you you are not alone. I have been excited about this new experience ever since we made the decision, but I have
been amazed at the inability of most people to understand. Virtually everyone I have spoken to about our new living space immediately assumes that this is a temporary move to get through my job transition. No one can imagine that we would not want to buy a house at the earliest opportunity. For us however this is a chance to simplify our lives by physically limiting our footprint. We have sold off nearly all of our stuff and made many difficult choices about what we will keep. There will be no room to keep the unnecessary. In addition, the new apartment is as walkable as we could possibly find. We are making an escape attempt from the suburban driving culture. Nearly everything that was only a short drive away will now be only a short walk away. This walkabilty is calculated to reduce the time cost of many of our frequent tasks and gain us more discretionary time for each other. The next few months may be a difficult adjustment but they should at
least be interesting.

Time for the News

2009-12-27T06:12:00.000-06:00

One year ago I could have answered most any question you had for me on current events. I faithfully listened to NPR both to and from work. I had RSS feeds from CNN, BBC, NFL, and various other alphabet soup organizations that ensured I knew the minute something happened, anything. Then we had another child. I ran out of time to do much of anything. When I started seriously looking at what I needed to cut back on to free up enough time to just get the absolutely necessary tasks completed, I noticed that I was spending a lot of my time keeping up with the world. Sure I could readily converse on nearly any topic in the news, but I was missing workouts, rushing the trash to the curb just ahead of the trash truck, not making any progress in the books that I needed to be reading, and getting "the look" from my wife far too often when sitting at the computer. I decided that knowing the status of the current government scandal was no longer worth the time that it took to acquire the details. It was time to cut back. When I began to look at what I really needed to know and the information that I was actually taking in it quickly became clear that I had no real need or interest in roughly 80% of what I was taking in from my various news streams. After sitting down with a blank sheet and a pencil and a little focused thinking I was able to identify the things that I am truly interested in knowing on a regular basis. A few more minutes research and I was able to identify blogs or twitter feeds that had good updated information for those areas. Now all of the news that I really want comes to me with a minimal amount of gossip, scandal, opinion, blatant lies, or general sensationalism. So far I don't miss it. It actually makes me feel go dd to say things like "I have never heard of Lady Gaga" or "There is another political sex scandal? Huh, guess I missed it" I'll keep you updated on my low information plan. Special thanks on this one to Tim and the
4HWW.

Christmas is the season for getting...

2009-12-27T05:49:00.000-06:00

In past posts I have mentioned some of the ways that we super size our lives for convenience. This Christmas has really brought home to me the mindset of getting more stuff as an agenda. Yesterday a cashier at Walmart was talking to my four year old son. Her first question was "Did you have a good Christmas?" Her second question was "Did you get a lot of good stuff?" Perhaps this is a clever marketing technique that the multinational mega-retailer is pushing, but other interactions over the last few days have convinced me that she was just voicing the general thinking about the holiday. No matter how many times we say that Christmas is about giving, most people seem more concerned about getting. In a strange twist, many people I have spoken with seem happy for others that have gotten large numbers of expensive gifts. Not only do we want to get lost of stuff for ourselves, but we want everyone else to get lots of stuff too! This would be fine if everyone had plenty of money, stable jobs, and not debt. Unfortunately very few families find themselves in that situation. I am not advocating a miserly lifestyle absent of fun and things that make you happy, but the idea that more stuff is better needs to be laid to rest.

Kaizen Mind

2009-08-24T05:03:00.000-05:00

To a Kaizen Mind nothing is ever finished. This frustrates those without the kaizen mindset. Things are simply the best that they can be at this moment. The Kaizen mind always seeks perfection while knowing that it cannot be achieved. It is living in the moment. At this moment this thing is the best that I can make it, but I will strive in the next moment to achieve perfection yet again. Perfection can never be achieved, yet must always be sought. The reward is looking back at your long slow climb to where you are from where you were.

Visualization

2009-07-19T06:04:00.000-05:00

One of the most powerful tools for eliminating waste is visualization. If you can clearly see that you are throwing away money, time, or any other resource, you will generally do something about it. It is much more likely that your losses or shortfalls are hidden. Seth Godin had a great post related to this today. Why should you even display something that does not help you to improve? Generally the metrics that are displayed around your house, in your car, and at your job, are those things that are easy to track and display. Seldom do they allow you to directly see what is needed to reduce waste. Your thermostat displays the temperature in your house. From this information you can indirectly estimate what your energy bill will be wrong. If you had a meter that showed the rate of power consumption and the cost to you at the current rate, what would be your reaction? Mine would be to search the house turning off lights and unused electronics until I could minimize that consumption. How do you think that would affect my spending on power? Going back to that thermostat, you probably have one or two of these in your house. These measure temperature where they are positioned in the house and control that temperature. How often do you sit beside your thermostat? Do you care what the temperature is there? Thermocouples could easily be positioned throughout the house and routed back to the thermostat to give you an overall overage temperature, or you could select the one room that you will be using most and control the temperature based on that. This also could have a large effect on energy consumption. Visualizing is a great way to control consumption.

Try the Buffet

2009-07-15T06:04:00.000-05:00

Lately I have noticed that the majority of my tasks are completed online. I pay bills, research projects, follow interesting developments on my favorite blogs, shop, look up reference information, and keep up with friends all through the computer. This has the advantages of reducing the amount of paper I must keep track of, limiting the number of books that I need to keep handy, and making my projects available from any location. The downside is that I end up tabbing through multiple sites to get to the applications and information that I really need. I am also easily distracted by shiny objects, which results in my following links that look interesting but are completely unrelated to what I am trying to get done. The list of sites that I was using on a daily basis included:

1. Hotmail
2. Twitter
3. Amazon
4. Triiibes
5. The Four Hour Work Week Blog
6. Litemind
7. Seth's Blog
8. US Bank
9. Google
10. Blogger Dashboard
11. JustPlainMoody
12. Facebook
13. Various Blog Statistics
14. CNN.com
15. The Springfield Newsleader
16. Fidelity.com

Opening all of these, even with the tab function of Firefox was very time consuming, and refreshing all of the tabs to keep things current only added to the total. A few weeks ago I discovered iGoogle and Google Reader. Together they have made a huge difference in my online activities. I now have collected all of the sites that I need into one page that opens quickly and has only what I need. In this lighter form, my daily tasks have been reduced so much that I sometimes feel that I am done too quickly. The best part about iGoogle is the buffet style selection of gadgets that can be displayed on your page. These gadgets are very easy to search through to find what you need and are extremely easy to add and subtract from your iGoogle page. I found myself searching through them and adding ten or so gadgets then trying them out and removing all of the time wasters of slow loaders. Now I can open one page and scroll through everything that I need look at in five minutes then move on to other important tasks. I highly recommend this tool for reducing wasted time.

Real Cost

2009-06-28T20:03:00.000-05:00

Anything that you pay for has an advertised cost and a real cost. The real cost is often invisible due to marketing plans, or the difficulty of seeing cost versus usage. In this post I would like to discuss one of the real costs in my life and how they compare to the advertised cost.

Everyone has a cell phone these days. There are thousands of phones and an even greater array of calling and data plans. I am a very basic user when it comes to wireless services. I do not text, and I do not surf. Thus I need only calling minutes. The plan we decided to go with is a pay as you go $.075 per minute. This seems pretty good: 300 minutes for $20. When I began to investigate our actual usage and what we were being charged for I found that a majority of our calls were far short of a whole minute. We were however being charged in rounded up full minutes even for calls that ended exactly on a whole minute. See the data below.

In the first chart you can see that every call that was made resulted in an overcharge for minutes. This resulted in the real rate per minute being slightly higher than the advertised rate on average. On very short calls the real rate was extremely high.

The real cost of our cell phone service comes out as $.088 per minute (20% more than the advertised price)

Unfortunately unless you live in Peru (one of the only places I can find that charges by the second for airtime) you are stuck with the roundup policy. The only real result of this analysis for me is a new tendency to not call anyone if I am not sure of getting through. Also if I think the conversation will take less than one minute I send an e-mail instead. Overall I am now using fewer minutes, and spending less

Paying Bills

2009-06-14T17:33:00.000-05:00

I have already covered reducing time paying bills in another post (Family Values) and thought that I would share the next steps that I have taken. After a little research I discovered that the satellite and phone bill including internet can be set up for auto pay using a credit card. Sounds scary I know. By following up with setting the credit card bill to auto pay itself in full from our checking account each month, I can make sure everything is paid on time while at the same time earning rewards points that quickly add up to more purchasing power without me ever having to think about the bills. With paperless statements added in, I can let all of those companies digitally archive my statements and also avoid having to file them. Also it is very simple and fast to access them online at a planned date once per month to check for accuracy. We now have only three bills that require action each month and they are set up for bill pay. Total time now required is four minutes per month.

Lean Yardwork

2009-05-31T22:31:00.000-05:00

There is almost never time to mow the yard and trim during the week. By the time I get home from work and eat dinner with the family, it is too late to mow the whole yard. My general method has been to spend two hours or more of the weekend getting my yard into step with the retirees around me. I hate losing that time. It always hangs over my head when I am planning for the weekend. This weekend I tried something different.

After some thinking about what takes so long in this process, I noticed that the mower bogging down during passes through the taller sections of the yard reduced my speed to 33% of my normal pace. By adjusting the height settings on the mower I was able to get an acceptable cut at my normal pace by sacrificing only 1/2 inch in cutting. The yard still looked good and I was able to cut the entire yard in half the time. Of course I may need to cut it more often if the rains keep up, but I do not think that I will get a sign in the yard for violating community statutes about yard maintenance.

My List

2009-05-31T22:18:00.000-05:00

In the last post, I discussed how to identify the things that you should target for waste elimination. Reflecting on my own life I developed the following list:

1. Mowing the yard
2. Paying bills
3. Dishes
4. Laundry
5. Groceries
6. Vehicle maintenance
7. Meal preparation
8. Trip preparation
9. Commute
10. House cleaning
11. Trash / Recycling
12. Workout
13. Morning routine

I have already worked on a few of these. It is time to get to work on the rest

What Must be Done

2009-05-31T21:54:00.000-05:00

As I have said before, applying the principles of waste reduction to your personal life is a little different than it is in business. Aside from being your own customer, there is another consideration. You do not need to save time in everything you do. There are some things that you want to spend your time doing. It is enjoyable. You do not want to take the waste out of these. The things that you want to cut to the bone are the tasks that you MUST do. Eliminating the waste from these gives you the freedom to blow all of the time that you want on hobbies, seeking out new things to improve, and just relaxing...if you want. The first step of understanding what to work on is defining the things that you must do, but do not enjoy.

I guess I might as well....

2009-05-21T19:22:00.000-05:00

I have talked about trying to avoid Paying for the Peaks but what do you do if you have already paid for something, and cannot get back the investment? I have been thinking about this scenario since reading Seth Godin's post about sunk costs.

One way you can use past mistakes to your advantage is to distribute what you need to do over your current capacity. If you already have dropped a lot of cash on double oven it serves no purpose to remove it and install only what you need for daily use. Instead you can use the current oven at a reduced capacity to take advantage of what you already have spent.

This may seem like common sense, but it really has a huge effect on how much of your time is taken to accomplish your required activities. If you have a sudden increase in demand for something, and you have already spent the money in the past, you can balance your need over the extra capacity and not have to work as hard to accomplish your goal.

I have seen a similar effect at work. When a products life is over and the production line cannot be used for anything else, we do not remove it until we need that space. It costs money to remove things. I saw the most extreme example of this in Japan. New space was needed inside a plant. The calculated how much would be required, then instead of destroying the old building, they cut out only what they needed and left the remaining building standing until more space was needed.

Marking Time

2009-05-18T21:58:00.000-05:00

As I have discussed before in Setting Good Targets you have to measure what you want to improve. In this post Gina Trapani gives you a great tool to measure the balance in your life. I really like the way she refers to comparing the ideal to the actual to show the way to improvement.

Kaizen

2009-05-18T21:48:00.001-05:00

I found this article today regarding the principles of kaizen (improvement). It is nice to see that I am not alone in my fight to eliminate waste. While I agree with a lot of what the article says, it focuses more on lean thinking that the true philosophy of the Toyota Production System. You cannot address ony muda (waste) without reduction of muri (overburden) and mura (unevenness).