Nancy Hendrickson

For me, 2009 is the year of focus aided by the Kaizen Philosophy—a way of being that encourages small, continuous improvement.

Although generally associated with post-World War II Japanese industrial recovery, Robert Maurer, author of One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, noted that kaizen has its origins in Training Within Industries (TWI), a post-Depression era methodology of making continuous improvement.

As World War II hit America, factories were tasked to increase production, while at the same time losing factory workers to military service. Instead of making radical changes to the factory processes, workers were tasked with making small continuous changes. For example, if a factory line had 100 different processes, the goal was to make one small change per process.  The results of WWII factory production is legendary.

Kaizen and Your Business
We human have big goals. When we diet we want to instantly lose 20 pounds.  When we start an exercise program we want to run a half-marathon. When we start an online business, we want 10,000 people to sign up for our mailing list on day one.

What happens when the pounds don’t come off so easily, or a month goes by and only 5 people sign up for your mailing list? The natural temptation is to give up – - to reach for the Snickers, or to jump to another “instant success” business idea.

When meeting a client for the first time, I do my best to manage their expectations—for example, to let them know that they are not going to get effective articles for their article marketing campaign if they pay $5 each and have them written by a non-English speaker. The client may not like paying more for articles, but over time they have proof (through analystics and conversion) that the better content brings the better business result.

In terms of our own businesses, what do you think about mananging our own expectations but drafting a Kaizen-inspired blueprint for our businesses?  What would that look like? Maybe

•    5 new mailing list sign-ups this week
•    8 the following week
•    12 the following week
•    18 the following week
•    24 the next week

Not very sexy, but by following the Kaizen philosophy, you will experience steady, continuous growth.

How else to apply Kaizen?
What if you focused on the small continuous improvements that will bring in one excellent client this month.

Or, if you wrote an update to your last e-book and re-releasied it at a discount to everyone on your list?

Or what if you spent one hour once a week calling or e-mailing your existing clients? Or 15 minutes?

It’s these small continuous improvements in your processes that will bring changes of legendary proportion.

What 2009 Continuous Improvements Will You Make?
As we swing in

to 2009, my small continuous improvements will be in the area of article writing and high touch customer service.

How about you?  Please leave your comments -

My copy of  Leo Babauta’s new book, The Power of Less, arrived Friday evening, and by late Friday I’d read it cover to cover.  Now, on Sunday, I’m starting it again.  It may be about “less”, but is contains more than my brain could take in with a single read.

Leo, the owner of the wildly popular ZenHabits blog, has written one of those classics that apply to both our business and personal lives. In brief, The Power of Less is a treatise on the small steps (see my blog post on the Kaizen way) we can take to simplify our lives and in the doing find far more joy and success than all of our manic behavior could produce.

The book begins with Leo’s own story of being an debt, overweight, smoking, workaholic who rarely saw his family. His life was chaotic and he never had time for the things and people he loves. (Sound familiar?) Then, he made the choice to simplify his life in small continuous ways; first he quit smoking by focusing all of his energy on that one goal.

Then, he attacked other goals, one at a time, like becoming a runner, eating healthier, starting a successful blog, and getting out of debt.

One by one the goals were met (and exceeded).  Leo has run two marathons, has doubled his income, became a vegetarian, decluttered his home, lost 45 pounds, and spends quality time with his family.  Today,  Leo’s blog  is one of the top 50 blogs in the world, with more than two million readers a month. If that doesn’t make you want to adopt his principles, nothing will!

The Six Principles of Simple Productivity
The Power of Less is divided into two sections; the first walks readers through the six principles of simple productivity:

1. Set limitations
2. Choose the essential
3. Simplify
4. Focus
5. Create habits
6. Start small

Part II details practical tips for implementing the six principles in key areas including e-mail, health, time management, filing, Internet, and decluttering your work space.

Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy
While the principles are simple, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re easy to implement.  Anyone who has started a new habit (like a diet) knows that for sure. However, with small continuous improvement, the principles are achievable.

For example, Leo has weaned himself off e-mail to checking only twice a day. I probably check e-mail 100 times a day – - and just as a nutritionist wouldn’t ask us to cut out every unhealthy food in one day, they would encourage us to cut-back. For me, that would mean (first) KNOWING how many times a day I check e-mail, and then (second) cutting back a little, then a little more, and then a little more. Until I reach a point that e-mail doesn’t rule my existence.

The Principle of Choosing the Essential
While all of the principles serve as stepping stones to a life of more, the one that hangs me up the most is the principle of choosing the essential. And it’s a bugaboo that’s been with me life-long. As Leo says, once you know the essentials you’ll be in a position to eliminate the chaos of incoming information, commitments, and clutter.

Thankfully, the section on choosing the essential has a series of questions to help define what’s essential – and this is the section I’m currently re-reading – because it’s the most difficult for me. I know absolutely that once I have those essentials defined, the remaining principles will be far easier to integrate.

The reason this principle is so important to me is that in knowing the essentials, I’ll know which projects or tasks have the highest priority – because they’re the ones that will have the biggest impact on the essentials. For me, this is the key to having the life of what truly IS more.

Putting the Principles Into Action
As a life-long “clean desk” advocate, I was ahead of the game on the decluttering principle, but way behind on e-mail, Internet, commitments, and health.

Fortunately, simplifying these areas are a matter of making small continuous changes (the Kaizen way), instead of radical ones. For instance, one of the life issues discussed is making time for what we love. As a self-employed person, I get so caught in the flow of work that I forget what I really love.

However, once prompted by The Power of Less, I really thought about what I love – then I made a list, and one-by-one will begin implementing them in my life.(and being a true Kaizen-ista) will NOT try to take on all of them at once!)  By the way, my list includes learning to kayak, to play the harmonica, and hiking.

A Perfect Time for a Perfect Book
As I wander the Internet, I hear over and over the desire for simplification. The entrepreneurs I know have all hit the wall at the same time – - they’re on information overload, have massive (and unattainable) to-do lists, poor health, wretched time management, cluttered desks and minds, and no fun.

If ever there was a time for The Power of Less, it’s now.