5 - S Your Life

5-S - you may ask? What is that? More than likely it is something that you do - in many instances of your life. Clean out the clutter and put things away. 5-S stands for Sort, Straighten, Sanitize, Standardize, and Sustain. It is a part of a lean journey where the waste is removed. Directly, you may remove waste by the discarding of unused items. Indirectly, you may gain time, or make your task more efficient.

Consider the following: Imagine a day that you were late for work. The alarm clock "did not" go off and you are frantically running around your house. The "Flight of the Bumble Bee" is playing in the background. Thing about your clothes. Now, knowing that you are late - find what you need in the pictured room.

The very thought is a logistical nightmare! Yes, I will admit that my room does look like this, but this is not my room. However, I never claimed to be efficient in the process of keeping my room clean. Regardless, it is a point that relates from the largest of manufacturing plants down to something you do everyday.

The idea of lean, which is what 5-S is a part of, is waste reduction. In this case it is time by removing all the items that you are not using. If you find that you are using all the items - great - except we must now organize. It is an art as well as a discipline. When you begin this journey in your home it will take some time to establish. Consider small things first. Go through your sock drawer and remove all the unmatched socks. Match all the socks while you are there. Make sure your socks have a certain spot, your shirts, your jeans, your shoes, etc. Everything has a SPECIFIC place. This is not the hard part by the way. The use of the system is the easy part and you will be very thankful for it when you get accustomed to it. I must warn you, the hard part, will be to put everything back the SAME WAY, EVERY TIME. Everything has a place, and everything in its place.Once you have the standard set - label it. Place a label that can work for everyone. Make it kid friendly too! If you set up a standard process - and find yourself deviating take a moment and revisit the process. If you place your socks in drawer 4 and your map says the socks belong in the other room - should you adjust your map? Your standard process should also be realistic, and adaptable. I caution the adaption portion - only if your plan changes the standard. If your plan does not change, and you just start adapting here and there based on "time" or "laziness" then you have broken your process and the 5-S will crumble. However, you may get to play the "Flight of the Bumble Bee" song. If you just want to hear the song, go to this site.

One last visual to help you understand the effects of 5-S. Consider a word search puzzle. Consider the length of time that you spend looking for the words. The diagonal, vertical, and horizontal words that cross or share letters - even the really tricky ones that go backwards. Now if the words were already circled, or listed out in the same order or manner so they were easy to pick out - how long would that puzzle actually take?

Once you have this down, consider all of the other things that you could do? The garage, your tool box, the cupboards, etc. Other examples can be found by visiting this site of "before and after" pictures of 5-S.


Pictures found at:
http://lizette.i.ph/photo/d/760-1
http://webscripts.softpedia.com/screenshots/Word-Search-Game-24400.png/DSC02131.JPG?g2_GALLERYSID=TMP_SESSION_ID_DI_NOISSES_PMT