Ken Lanzel
August 8, 2023
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Table of Contents

Lean Tactics to an Amazing Work-Life Balance

Let’s start with I am certified in ‘Lean Applied to Business’ and have led a Lean Six Sigma program. In my experience, I have completed small process lean projects to full-blown corporate Lean Six Sigma projects. Additionally, I have studied ‘Getting Things Done’ principles by David Alan to be an efficiency and productivity expert.

This is what I offer in my Personal Executive Coaching sessions.

What are Lean Tactics-

Lean tactics are adaptable and can be applied in various contexts to streamline operations, enhance productivity, and create value for both customers and organizations.

Now for those of you who are not familiar, ‘Lean’ is a business concept that was grown out of the Toyota Production System. The ‘Lean’ processes are centered on preservice VALUE with LESS work. The ultimate goal is providing perfect value to a customer (or yourself) through a perfect process that has ZERO waste. I specialize in adapting this process to work and life. Optimally, I use these to gain work results and reduce time waste, to MAXIMIZE time to enjoy your life!!

So each week, I send out Lean Tactics, Tips, and Life Hacks to make subscribers and clients live more successfully. The tactics range from personal life hacks to professional streamlining of work areas.

As someone who is always trying to better people’s lives, I thought I would share the catalog of tips and tactics. So here are the previous weeks’ Lean Tactics.

Make sure to check out our blog on Work-life balance strategies.

Lists-

Getting things out of your brain and onto a list helps declutter the white noise of life. Removing this extra thought and lack of direction from your day gains in focus and productivity. If you do not already utilize some form of a list, I suggest the following:

Have a daily list of things that take 2-10 minutes. If it takes less than 2-10 then DO IT. This list should be clear by end of the day.

Next, list out the projects and have-to-do’s at work. It is ok if this list is long. Then prioritize the list by whether they are necessary actionable, nice to have, or someday projects. Lastly, next to the actionable write down next to them the next ACTION step.

This is critical, make sure you make the SAME list as B but make it for your Personal LIFE. So many people focus only on leaning out their work and not creating action steps to hit their LIFE Goals!. Do the same process and then execute.

Align Your Priorities-

As I outlined in a post about Work-Life Balance, too many people do not align their priorities for work to what would give them a highly productive LIFE too. If you do not build these into your Lean Life Tactics, you will NOT make the time for them. Assure you create time and priority for activities such as:

The 3 F’s- Faith, Family, and Fitness
Worship
Intimacy
Hobbies
Side hustle, Bank account, or Retirement
Travel
Planning or Decision-making
Your Job or Compensation

Delegate Tasks that AREN’T Yours!-

No matter whether at work or at home, we take on OTHER’s tasks. We take on doing tasks for our kids because we think they won’t do them. We do extra tasks at work because upstream or down someone isn’t doing their tasks. Accountability is the answer. Humbly, work to migrate these tasks back to the owner. Take inventory or list out things that are someones else’s and get them to their rightful owner.

Your Work Station-

Whether you work at home or in an office or you have both (we all have our domain we do work in), it needs to be decluttered, free of distraction, and organized. HINT: This works for the kitchen, workbench, gym, garage, etc.

Remove all clutter. Evaluate what you REALLY need in your reach.

Set the order to the items you need. Have materials and tools sorted, labeled, stocked, and ready for action.

Keep it clean regularly, restock for the next day/time, and restock.

Set a reminder and standardize the day of the week to follow a checklist to perform knocking this out.

Visual Measurements-

In order to keep you motivated and on track with projects or goals, it is best to have a visual. This may range from a spreadsheet or project software to the poster of a vacation destination or a picture of what you want to look like when you get done cutting weight next to your food tracker. I find either daily histograms or spreadsheets work best but do NOT underestimate good old paper and pencil to keep it simple.

Lean out the Monthly MONEY Leaks-

We now live in the world of ‘LTV’ Life Time Value, and Software or Applications as a Service with their Customer Success Models of maintaining customer spends. The problem is we do not take the time to audit what we are spending. We are used to shrugging off $5 a month here for this app or $25 a month there for this membership. Pretty soon you take inventory of your non-essential ‘Monthly’s’ and you could buy yourself a new car. Perform an audit on these costs, firm up your needed items, and lean out your costs.

KPIs and Work Capture

KPI’s Aren’t Just for Work-

Many of you work off of Key Performance Indicators at work. However, how many of you actually try to figure out your own personal or family metrics to a happy life? So many times I run into people who say they are ‘happy’ but are running themselves ragged at work and oddly enough even more so AT HOME! It is because there are no measurements of happiness or KHI’s (key happiness indicators).

Capture-

First, you need to reverse engineer your happiness and capture the barriers. Answer questions like, What makes you happiest? What is in the way of you having more of that? What resources are needed to do more of the things that make you happy? Capture the work elements and your personal to-do list items in consideration. This does NOT mean automatically cut things out of your life because they are in the way of happiness….ie- Suzie is happiest when on a hike, however taking care of her 1 1/2-year-old daughter limits her hiking time. Suzie can not just cut out her daughter. HOWEVER, grabbing a backpack capable of carrying the daughter might yield even more time hiking. A two-fer!

Start a Measurement System-

As mentioned before this can be as complex as you want it but remember we are trying to lean out your life. Use just a piece of note paper or a spreadsheet. A basic study or inventory of your time spent on things will suffice. Make sure whatever you are trying to solve captures the complete amount of time. An example: Cooking makes Jon relaxed and happy, finding out how much time he needs to be able to cook is important. So # Time spent cooking, cooking opportunities for friends/family, use of the kitchen, and times he was not able to cook due to X, Y, or Z. These metrics will help Jon triangulate what roadblocks he needs to clear from his life, how much time he needs and the frequency he needs to invite people over for meals.

You may also want to read our blog on business practices!! Read More

Assure to Include Your Financials-

If you do not have an exact finger on the pulse of your complete Household Expenditures, absolutely need to have this. Money is NOT everything. However, in order to have LESS stress and do the things making you happiest having your financials correct is critical. For this exercise, measure as it pertains to KHI’s and your cost of happiness. Measure what expenditures are needed weekly, monthly, and annually. If you have some large ticket items, it is time to do a lean exercise on the budget to see where you can make room. A great example of this could be: Charlie wants to go on a guided fishing trip costing $1500 he does not have. The trip is 13 months away. He gets his $4.25 fancy coffee every day. He decides to forgo the coffee it takes him 352 days to save for the trip.

Further tips are at Financial Freedom Finances 101

Hi-Jack Your Calendar!

Here we go:

How messy is your work or personal calendar? The HACKs below can help you streamline your time, JEDI Mind Trick the Corporate world, and Maximize your time!

Lean out Your Week and Reoccurings-

Admittedly, I run an extremely crisp calendar. Leaning out my calendar includes answering a couple of questions. Can hour meetings be 30 minutes? Do you block 15-30 minutes before or after meetings to allow for admin or lav breaks? Are your standard hours of business outlined in your calendar? Is Lunch built into your day? Do you use reoccurring meetings to be every other week versus every week? These questions help you brainstorming on what REALLY needs to take up your time.

Implement a 30-minute System-

One of my favorite leaders I worked for was the best work/life executive I have ever seen. His schedule was like speed dating. If you couldn’t fit your meeting with him in 30-minutes, that was on you. He was crisp, he was disciplined and respectful of time. Crisp 30-minute intense discussions against the clock with that expectation yields more productive and crips meetings. This minimizes the corporate expectation and maximizes your ‘work’ time. Get a clock or timer, start it as if you are paying by the hour….because you are!!! You will never get that time back!

Manage timelines and expectations-

Have you ever had a person hit your calendar with an impromptu, “I put an hour on our calendar to talk about ______ (insert topic here).” Learn to say answers like, ‘I am in the middle of something can we make it 30 minutes or I am free for the next 15 if you want to talk about it.’ You will be surprised to find this type of management and candor about your time works with your leadership and subordinates.

If your leader schedules a 4-hour marathon meeting, ask “Can I go first after your speaking part? I have client business to attend to and I want to deliver”. Be truthful and work diligently but maximize any if at all time you get back. Trust me when I say, if you challenge to minimize the time meetings or calls take you will set the expectation of your time is to be respected.

This works for ME! FREE TRAINING- 10 Step System for Making a Digital Product

Conclusion-

In today’s hustle and bustle society, it is important to get your day blasted off with an early routine. There are multiple habits you can use to make the most of your morning. To build strong morning habits and not waste your morning time, first, you need to prioritize what is important to you during the day. For example, write down the most important items. So if you wrote down family time in the evening, then you want to assure you take care of things in the morning to not hinder the valuable time.

Following that same example, if you work out or journal or meditate and want to not have it take up time in the evening generate time in the morning to get these done. Personally, I get my hour-and-a-half workout done, my devotional, personal journaling and meditation done before the household starts to stir. The reason I do this is I value the time with the family and do not want my personal habits to hinder that time.

Now in order to do this in the early morning, along with not waking up the household you need to think about habits for your own wake-up process. Think about habits to not wake others up.

Ninja Tactics-

Here are some helpful hints to get up ready to go, quiet like a ninja, and on time to maximize your time:

Prep the night before, put your work clothes in the bathroom or if you go to the gym in your car or by the location you can change away from others.
NO Snooze BUTTON Get UP!
Set an alarm that will be more specific for you and quiet enough to not bother others
Slip out to where you are going to do the early activities. If it is journaling, devotional, meditation, reading, or similar get your coffee and get after it. If its for a run or gym or bike ride slip out of the house but have a strategy for where you shower to get ready for the day. My suggestion is if you have a secondary shower or the furthest (quietest) in the house.

The main focus is to maximize your time of getting things accomplished first thing in the morning. It gives you a greater sense of purpose while not hindering important times. The changes will be amazing on how productive you will feel. It is gratifying to see how much time in the day you get back by blasting a solid morning routine.

As we take this journey week by week, remember in work and particularly your personal LIFE, “If there is NO time there is NO Success” Take back your life and build time for you to reach your life goals. LEAN out your LIfe!