To become a LEAN master…

• 🏎️ GET INSPIRED by the Pit Stop Comparison Video.

• 🧠 Know the TYPES OF WASTE.

• 💡Overview some EXAMPLES.

Get Inspired 🏎️

Wild right!? You blink on that comparison and you miss it!

• 1950 = 1min 7sec

• 2013 = 3.5sec

How do you get that drastic of a transition? It certainly is not that the F1 crew made a single adjustment and all of a sudden they were in the 2013 reality. It was a series of small changes done again, and again, and again, and again. Changes to the pit rules, tools, technologies, materials; small iterations that were implemented; things were eliminated, automated, and delegated… all of this is quite easy in practice, and then when you stack it up over and over again, you achieve large results.

This is LEAN; the process of removing waste and getting to the value. Think of something that you do at home or at work that bugs you, you wish it was different. In effect, you are in 1950 and with continuous improvement you can drastically change the results and impact of what you do.

Oh and by the way… 3.5 seconds isn’t the fastest pit stop… in 2023 McLaren Racing cut that time nearly in half to 1.8 seconds! The point remains, there is always room for improvement!

Types of Waste 🧠

There are technically 8 types of waste. Although it can be helpful to spot them all, let’s cover the more frequent wastes that we come across in our daily lives.

Excess Inventory: When you have more than what’s necessary.
- Too much of a single item in your fridge or pantry. It gets in your way, it was extra money spent, and then things expire.
FIX - Analyze usage so you know how much is the right amount.

Motion: Unnecessary movement of people, equipment, or product.
- Let’s say your coffee beans, grinder, filters, maker, and mugs require all this shuffling around the kitchen. It wastes time to gather all the items when you really just want your cup of coffee.
FIX - Move needed items together.

Waiting: Holding for equipment, materials, or final product.
- How many times have you stared at a printer or a boiling pot of water?
FIX - Plan tasks of value to exist during waiting periods (Do something while the printer spools / prep ingredients or do dishes while the water boils)

Over Processing: Doing more than is necessary.
- We all have routines that we’ve dropped or products that we’ve discontinued using because it was “overkill” for what was truly needed.
FIX - Know what the actual goal is, and be an essentialist.

Defects: Having a product that is not fit for use, necessitating reworking or scrapping.
- Outside of defective items that break, I see this come up a lot with training & tools. If you don’t have the right equipment and instructions you’ll get defective outcomes at work with a team, or at home with things like cooking recipes.
FIX - Standardize the work / Get the right tools / Get quality products that don’t break.

Examples 💡

Some of the examples and fixes listed above with the types of waste already give you some application to get your brain churning… so let’s keep this brief with a top 3.

• Keep Necessary Items Together - It’s quite humorous how often we can run to-and-fro without realizing that we should move things around to be more efficient. Track what you do during the week and make some changes now that you’re aware.

• Standardize your Grocery List - You can swap meals out seasonally for variety AND create standardization. This becomes a build-to list that you compare with what you have on hand. Need 2 packs of chicken thighs and you already have 1 in the freezer, then you’re only ordering 1. Copy and paste your list, adjust the amounts based on what you have on hand, and then you’re good to go.

• Kan-Ban - LEAN technique that means “sign card;” it’s a way of batching your items so that you never run out. For example, keep 2 tubes of toothpaste on hand, when you grab your backup it triggers you to order another. You can get really fun with this system by using laminated QR codes so you can auto add items to your Amazon cart.

🌟 TOP PICKS

Here are some products and tools that I’ve used frequently to make work and home more LEAN!

Specialty Resources

• 2 Second Lean - Become a LEAN Guru by knowing Lean thoroughly with this one-stop resource.

• Kaizen Foam - Organize your drawers or other containers. I’ve used it for desk drawers, tool boxes, and building specialty holsters for other items.

  • Kaizen Toolset - Specialty toolset for precision marking and cutting foam.

Other Easy Access Resources

• Masking Tape - You can put tape down and write what item goes there. This means that when the item is missing it sticks out, and then when the item is placed over it you cover the indicator and everything looks clean.

• QR Codes - Extremely versatile. You can use QR Codes to take you to online manuals, note pages with instructions, even to add products to your Amazon shopping cart.

• Raycast - Free application (presently only for Mac - Windows & iOS coming soon), use it to create instant hotkeys for frequent tasks, templates for messages, and other automations and instant accessibility to other programs.

🎬 BEHIND THE SCENES

After last issue on The Focus Funnel, one subscriber who you can find on X as PhinehasBlim sent me the following comic frame from xkcd. It’s a breakdown of how long you can spend optimizing a task (applying LEAN) before you’ve spent more time than saved (when measured over a 5 Year period). It can also be a cool way to see how much time you have saved (for that 5 year period), when you make something more LEAN.

Example from Table Below: If you do that task weekly and you shave off 1 minute, then you have given your future self a total of 4 hours (over the next 5 years). That means that you can spend up to 4 hours on that optimization before you’ve actually cost yourself more time than you’ve saved.

ℹ️ Product links in this newsletter are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.