Welcome to my blog! Here, we are always finding ways to improve the lives of shift workers, coworkers, and ourselves. We find ways to improve our mood, energy, nutrition, and physical wellbeing. One way to improve our lives is making small improvements a little bit at a time. We can learn from the Japanese term “Kaizen”. This term means to change for the better or continuous improvement. I will discuss what it is and how to implement it into your life so you can make small changes that will have lasting results.
What is Kaizen?
Kaizen is a Japanese business philosophy that focuses on improving productivity gradually while making working environments more efficient. So, it basically translates to change for the better. In business, small changes can lead to better quality control, standardized work, efficient use of equipment, eliminating waste, and just making jobs more fulfilling.
The interesting part of this philosophy is that it originated in America after WWII. The government hired business experts to make industries more efficient and productive. So, after the war, America sent these businessmen to Japan to help them with the rebuilding of their economy and the Japanese implemented this “Kaizen” concept for their change. The Japanese industry was led by Toyota.
“ it’s far too easy to slide into the complacency of stability-oriented organizations. Whether out of a sense of self-congratulatory accomplishment of how far you’ve come or out of a sense of weariness from the hard-fought battles it took to get there……..we need to have the humility to recognize that we still have farther to go and the optimism to believe that we can, in fact, get there. Kaizen instills in us the habit and the discipline to keep going, to keep on reaching for that improvement that’s just around the corner”. https://www.adalo.com/posts/kaizen-how-one-little-word-can-change-the-world#
How To Implement It
So, if the overall goal of Kaizen is to make small changes over a period of time to create huge improvements within a company with all employees having a stake in the success, then why not implement the same philosophy into your personal life?
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together”- Vincent Van Gogh.
First you must figure out where your time is wasted. Finding the time to do important tasks is hard but if you know where your time is being wasted then you will have the extra time to accomplish more.
Second, ask yourself what small steps you can take now to be more efficient and productive within a 24-hour period. If you look at one day at a time or one week at a time, it’s not so over whelming. Make small changes over time and that will add up to large changes.
Hint: Keep track of how you spend your time and energy during the day. Find out what is working and what is not. See where you can eliminate some useless activities to focus on improving yourself.
Implement one day (hour) during the week to review and prioritize your focus and projects for that week. You must have balance (Harmony) between optimization and appreciation. This means that you must integrate both the negatives and positives of your experiences. Just remember, Kaizen is less about hustle and working more and more about accepting your failures, applying learnings in order to work better and smarter, and it’s about thoughtful adjustments.
Third is to simplify your behavior. What I mean by this is to make the behavior easier to do. For example, I use three approaches to make it a little easier. One is to increase your skills. This can be done by simply reading a book, attending a webinar, or joining some group. Second approach is to use your tools and resources. If you’re wanting to lose weight, get an app on your phone that keeps track of foods, buy a digital scale, or a good water bottle. Use your resources! And the third approach is to make the behavior small enough to make the change. Once you use the resources and tools, and you have increased your skill, now it’s time to change. Baby steps!
In conclusion, I believe that Kaizen can help in your personal life to achieve your goals. If you apply these simple rules and philosophy to your personal life, I know you will make the changes and succeed in life, business, relationships, and career. I recommend reading “How To Change” by Katy Milkman. She lays out a number of tips, tricks, and hacks to improve your life. Try to make these small changes and see what happens. My suggestion is to implement something for 30 days and try to do small changes everyday until you reach the end of the 30 days and see how far you’ve come. You will be amazed at the difference. If you need any help, please let me know. I am going to try to do this as well and I will let you know the results and what I think of it.
Until next time.
May you live a happy and healthy life.
Darren
Harmony Shift 