Get a L.I.F.E.

 When I was developing the Simpler Smarter Quicker programme I spent time analysing where people allocated their time and energy each day. I tried many categories until I finally felt I had a solution and I liked the word that, with a bit of creative license, became the acronym.

I started off with two categories that came out of my early training on continuous quality improvement. I remember the trainer saying we all have two jobs, doing our job and improving our job.  

I took the initial categories and called them Everyday Routines and Improvement Projects. Then when I analysed deeper I realised there was a category that wasn't accounted for. It was for non value added activities like correcting mistakes, commuting, office chatter and wasted time at meetings. I called this category Fuzzy Stuff. Finally one of the most important categories was Leisure, the category that makes work worthwhile. Going out and having fun, enjoying your family and friends. 

I asked teams to estimate on an average working day how they would split their hours. That is each day from the time they woke up until they went to sleep at night. Over many teams, consistently, they all complained that they had very little 'pure quality leisure' time. They recognised big chunks of waste / non value added activity in Fuzzy Stuff. Everyday Routines were taking too long and left little time for Improvement Projects. This simple analysis proved to be a very powerful wake up call. 

Typically people looked at Fuzzy Stuff and identified areas that could be saved. Pre-pandemic this quite often meant staying at home one day each week, saving commute time and investing that time into leisure e.g. early end to Friday.

Then by focusing on one area at a time, the amount of time spent on everyday routines could be reduced and the saved time repurposed as improvement time.

During the coaching sessions, even though the assessment of how the 'pie' was split was inexact, it provided a broad brush to support sensible improvements. It also gave team members a language that they all easily understood. 

It also supported the need to make changes to GET A LIFE!!!