Weekly Retrospectives
In this article, I write some thought that glance at my mind this week. Most of them are personal base on my experience in running my business. Of course, like others, my business and my personal life as well have been impacted by COVID-19 outbreak.
We have limited activities and the cash flow dramatically falling down. However, I still running a small project that enough to survive during this outbreak. Since I have much time but less activity, I have time to write down my retrospectives daily.
Like another article, I spend my time about 15 minutes each day for writing and articles. Because I believe, small things will bring massive result if you stay persistent and consistent.
Lack of writing culture
Like the majority of people, I don’t have habits recording my plan, my thought, my promise or everything it is in a document. I rarely write down my plan in a piece of paper or note in a notebook or laptop.
When I have a small project with my friend, for example, I just talk with them about what next plan to do and the deadline. Then, days, after we meet both of us, forget about what we say. But, today I have the experience that makes me realize that writing the plan in a paper is very very important.
The first reason is it will help you avoid the same things in the future. Doing the same mistake, again and again, is stupidity. By writing the plan you can track which plan that doesn’t work or my note about the same mistake. Hence, you can focus on the progress rather repeated the previous plan.
Less of measure
Most of the small business that I ever met with them, they even don’t know how much profit they have each month and how much cost that they spend each day. Because we lack measure tradition. And it also happens to me.
That why I think extreme measurement is very important. Because with the right measure it will help me capture the objective condition of realistic. If you running a business, how much profit you get each month will help you to know how good your business in the future.
My prophet said that to be a good person you should get better each day. And to know you are getting better, you must have a clear measurement. Clear metrics. So, you will know do you getting better or not. Of course, this is not easy, but I think we should try to implement the measurement.
To much waste
Do you know the productivity and laziness is not an opposite? The opposite of productivity is waste, not lazy. Many people don’t realize this thing, so when they feel lazy to do something, they say I must be productive. Yes, there are many misleading concepts of productivity that makes it seems similar to busyness.
However, the biggest problem for us is understanding which one of our activities are waste. And which one of them is part of the productivity. Because not all people have good in management. It means they are good in setting the goals, good in planning and making detail plan.
Yes, without clear management it hard to track or to know which one of a bunch of activities that are waste and which one that is not. Hence, with proper management, it will help you know which one of your activities are waste and which one of them is not.
Practicing Kaizen
Kaizen teaches me to make small improvement every day. The philosophy is simple, the small improvement on a daily basis will bring massive result. Even though it small, but practising it is not easy. Because as like another new habit, it requires times and repetition
Small things do not require complicated thinks and consideration to do. And also don’t require more energy. But, as I mentioned before, implement it new habits requires times and repetition. And today I try to use kaizen in my life.
After I wake up I tidy up my bed for 5 minutes. After that I go to the kitchen and wash the dishes, sweeping the floor, and wipe down the kitchen cabinet. for 15 minutes. With these little things, we don’t need a big clean up every weekend as usual.
