Applying the Japanese 5S Management System to IT: clean computer desktop

Based on five Japanese words that begin with ‘S’, the 5S Philosophy focuses on effective work place organization and standardized work procedures. It’s part of the Toyota Production System and of Kaizen – a Japanese management philosophy of continuous improvement. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore how the concepts of 5S can be applied to the world of IT.

Seisō (清掃) Sweeping or Shining or Cleanliness: Systematic Cleaning or the need to keep the workplace clean as well as neat.

It’s easy for your computer desktop to quickly become very messy especially if your work involves downloading and working with a lot of files. It can quickly end up looking similar to this:

It’s frustrating… You waste time looking for ‘lost’ files whose name you can’t quite recall or locate.
The solution is to have a clean desk routine for your desktop, which you carry out at the end of every working day.

Here are the steps to my clean-up routine:

1. Delete all unnecessary / duplicate files.
2. Rename files according to a file naming policy. In a couple of days, let alone a couple of weeks – you just won’t remember what files named things like ‘budget 3.doc‘ or ‘episode24.mp3‘ are about. If you don’t have a specific file-naming policy at your company, start by thinking about what you might type into a search box to find the file. Avoid spaces and apostrophes - use an underscore instead. Add dates and version numbers at the end of file names.
3. Move all the files that obviously belong in an existing folder in your file system to where they belong.
4. Create folders for group of files that belong together -such as a series of image files - that are a subtle variation of the same graphic.
5. Move these folders to the correct project folders / sub-folders in your file system.
6. Think whether you’ll be using the files your moving in the near future and whether its worth compressing them into a zip or tar files? Can any files be burnt to a disk / moved to an external drive for long term archiving? Remember the idea of keeping only essential items implied in Seiri (整理)- the first S.
7. Transfer music files and podcasts to your Ipod or portable mp3 player to listen to them on the go…
8. Turn your  computer off. Use an  air duster can to remove any dust, hairs, and crumbs. Use a screen wipe to make sure your screen is clean.
9. Your backups and antivirus should be automated. If not now is a good time to backup your days work and to scan your computer with your anti-virus software.

Tips and tricks:

• Right Click on your destop and use ‘Sort Files by‘ to order the files by type or by name as your cleaning
• If your using a mac, your might want to use CleanDesk a nifty little apple script that automatically puts the files on your desktop into folders for different file extensions (.doc, .xls, .jpg …)
• Use a batch renaming tool to rename groups of file such as Ant Renamer 2 or use this trick from Yahoo! Tech to rename multiple files with one click.
• Get a beautiful wallpaper to inspire you to keep your destop clean.

Shitsuke (躾) – the 5th S refers to ’sustaining the discipline’. This means that now that you have a clean desktop you need to have the discipline to do this everyday. Do not allow a gradual decline back to your old ways and don’t slip back to having a messy desktop. You should aim to keep your desktop clean and Zen.