Keyboard Shortcuts as Kaizen
Kaizen focuses on small continuous improvements. Learning keyboard shortcuts is a great way to make small but significant improvements in productivity for those who spend a lot of time working at a computer.
Save Time and Increase Productivity
Using a keyboard shortcut instead of the mouse is much faster. Repeated many times this represents a great boost in productivity. Bruce Tognazzini, the founder of the Apple Human Interface Group and a renowned usability expert about using the keyboard vs. using the mouse is clear on this point:
- Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing.
- The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding.
Because not using the mouse take so much more time than using the keyboard – it should be considered Muda - wasteful
Prevent Repetitive Stress Injury
Carpal tunnel syndrom is a form of repetive stress injury that particularly afflicts computer users (more than 10% complain of carpal tunnel syndrom symptoms). According to a 2007 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, carpal tunnel syndrome was associated with the second longest average time away from work (28 days) among the major disabling diseases and illnesses – it’s an issue you should take seriously both personally and as a business. Learning to use keyboard shortcuts reduces the repetitive stress on your mouse hand. Occupational therapists recommend you use keyboard shortcuts as much as possible as possible in order to avoid repetitive stress injury. As such taking measures to promote the use of keyboard shortcuts can be seen as part of the so called 6th S – Safety of the Toyota Production System 5S framework.
Identify the programs you use the most
Identify the programs you and your team use the most. Remember the pareto principle. You’ll spend 80% of your time just using two or three programs. Focus on learning shortcuts for those programs to start with. Email is a good place to start: the average office worker spends 49 minutes managing emails each day, whilst the stats go up to 4 hours per day for senior managers. Do you spend a lot of time using a specialist application? What about Word and Excel?
Learning the shortcuts
- Print and display a nice cheat sheet of shortcuts next to every computer.
- Announce and organize an office quiz on shortcuts at the end of the month. The prize will serve as an incentive, whilst the quiz will introduce an element of fun which is important for learning and team bonding. Make this a monthly event – maybe focusing on different software each month. The quiz is also a good way of measuring and monitoring results which is an important part of Kaizen.
- Think of other ways to promote the learning of new shortcuts. For example use Tweeter to tweet a shortcut everyday to your team members. You can also display a different shortcut everyday on your intranet homepage…
Links to shortcuts cheat sheets
- General OS Shortcuts: Windows, Mac, Ubuntu
- Emailing: Outlook, Gmail
- Internet Browsers: standard browser shortcuts, IE, Firefox
- Office: Word, Excel
- Photoshop: pc, mac
- Shortcuts for geeks: gedit, aptana studio, eclipse
Not quite Inbox Zero? Tips to help you get there.
Archiving , labelling and deleting old emails is a straight forward process that if ruthlessly applied will get your email inbox close to zero. If you develop the positive habit of doing regular sweeps to process your new emails it’s fairly easy to maintain that near zero state. However getting from the 10 or 5 emails you’ve still got in your inbox to inbox zero is much harder. Normally these last few emails will fall into one of three categories:
A) Emails with content or attachments you’ll need in the near future
These are the emails with the excel file you are going to need tomorrow or on Wednesday. The reason why you are finding it difficult to deal with these emails is that you don’t believe that you’ll be able to find them easily if you archive them. Sure, it probably won’t be that difficult to find, but it’s likely that you’ll waste a couple of minutes looking for tit. The reason for this is that most people send emails with really bad titles that don’t relate to the content of the email or the attachment: emails with titles like ‘Re:meeting’ or ‘Re:bug’… Even if the original title of an email was meaningful – people are lazy when using the reply button and the email you need might be the 8th in a thread of 10 emails whose content has evolved dramatically compared to the original title. Tips for dealing with these types of emails:
- Forward the email with the attachment you need to yourself with a title that better describes the content of the email so that you’ll be able to identify it quickly.
- When forwarding an email to yourself as described above, add a reference to the title for example ‘task3045′. Make a note of this reference in your calendar or to do list and you’ll be able to find the email immediately when you need it – simply by searching using this reference.
- Don’t hesitate to fork discussions by changing the title of emails to something more descriptive when replying to them.
- If you’re a manager train your staff to use better more descriptive email titles – your entire organization will benefit.
B) Emails that need action
These emails tend to linger in your inbox because you are using it as an ad hoc to do list. And the reason why you are doing that is that you don’t trust the task management system you’ve got in place. Your inbox is not your to do list. Deal with these emails by:
- Converting these emails into actionable items on your to do list.
- Dealing with any underlying fundamental issues with your to do list system so that you have increased trust in it.
The second problem with these types of emails is that more often than not you want to reply to them to inform people that the relevant task or problem as been completed or solved. Tips A1 and A2 above will help you here.
C) Emails that need decisions
The third type of emails that will linger in your inbox are emails that require you to make a decision. These are the toughest emails to deal with. Ask yourself these questions:
- What is preventing me from making this decision? Do I need more information to make the decision? Do I simply need to schedule some time to think about this issue? Convert your answers into concrete and scheduled action steps and archive the email.
- Have I already made the decision but am I afraid to commit? You’ve made your decision: act on it and archive the email!
- Is this a decision I cannot afford to make? Are the consequences of making the wrong decision too high? Acknowledge the fact that you are not prepared to make this decision and archive the email.
By identifying these three types of emails: ‘emails with content you need in the near future’, ‘emails that need actions’ and ‘emails that need decisions’ and following the tips above you’ll be able to get and maintain your inbox at zero. Just remember Zen comes with discipline…
Inbox zero is an action based system for emptying your email inbox inspired by gtd. For Merlin Mann’s original series of posts on inbox zero, click here.
Give presentations like Steve Jobs – a recipe for mere mortals.
Ever wish you could give a great presentation that captivates and inspires your audience?
Well let’s take a look at how Steve Jobs, one of the most charismatic public speakers in the world, does it. First we will look at some of the key techniques he uses. Then at how you can use them in an office meeting or pitching context.
Steve’s recipe for an electrifying presentation:
Key techniques:
- Make your theme clear and consistent
- Create a headline that sets the direction for your meeting
- Provide the outline (I’ve got four things I’d like to talk with you about today…)
- Verbally open and close each section with a clear transition in between
- Be enthusiastic and energetic. Be excited about your company, your product or what your talking about.
- Make numbers and statistics meaningful and use them sparingly
- Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse some more!
Additional techniques:
- Wow your audience. Treat your presentation like a show with ebbs and flows, themes and transitions. Identify the memorable moment in your presentation and build up to it.
- Analogies help connect the dots for your audience
- Paint a simple picture that doesn’t overwhelm… Be short on bullet points and big on visuals!
- Include video clips, demonstrations and guests
- Sell an experience
Communications coach Carmine Gallo goes over these techniques in the video below:
Using Steve’s recipe in an everyday office context
A share-holder keynote extravaganza is, let’s face it, not something most of us get to do everyday. So let’s take a look at how Steve uses these techniques in a more simple office context. In these amazing videos from the early 1990s, Steve uses a simple whiteboard as his prop.
Steve begins by setting out a clear outline of the three things he wants to talk about. His transition to the first thing he wants to speak about is clear and smooth and is underlined by his use of space: he gets up from his chair and walks to the whiteboard. It’s very clear that Jobs has practised extensively. He does not hesitate when drawing his diagrams – they are clear and he draws them in a precise fluid manner. He has identified the key point he intends to make and from the very beginning, the way he draws the diagram is planned to allow him to make a dramatic visual point later on. His entire presentation is extremely visual and builds up gradually to a complete view of the market he is explaining. His use of numbers is succinct but they are used very clearly to powerful effect. With just a few numbers you are left with an inspiring vision of an extremely fast growing marketplace where Next has the opportunity to capture significant market share. Perhaps pause the video and reflect on all the numbers Steve does not mention ( the size of the traditional workstation market, the size of desktop pc market…) Steve does not lose focus, he doesn’t bombard his audience with facts.
Steve transitions to the next section of his presentation with a clear verbal cue: ‘Now lets examine….’ Each subsection his very clear. Steve does not waffle. You could say he uses verbal bullet points, for example (“for more…., for more …., and for more …). Each of these verbal bullet points is punctuated by a hand gesture. His next transition his also very clear: ‘Now we want to address….’ Notice how enthusiastic and energetic he is throughout the presentation. His conclusion is clear and definite - looking back at the key sections of his presentation with the help of a quick flash back to the key visual for each.
There is another lesson in these videos – apart from Steve’s formidable presentation skills. That’s his understanding and clear definition of the market place where he is operating; his understanding of what’s important to his customers, and his appreciation of his key competitive advantage compared to his number one competitor. You might want to reflect wether you and you’re staff have such a clear understanding of the market place where you are operating…
Applying the Japanese 5S Management System to IT: organising the files on your computer
Based on five Japanese words beginning with ‘S’, the 5S Philosophy focuses on effective work place organisation and standardised work procedures. It’s part of the Toyota Production System and of Kaizen – a Japanese management philosophy of continuous improvement. Today we’ll look at how 5S can help us organise the files on our computer focusing on the first S - Seiri (整理) or Sorting.
Seiri (整理) Sorting: Keeping only essential items. Everything else is stored or discarded.
Red Tagging
Chances are your current file system is a complete mess, so we’ll start with a radical step inspired by the 5S practice of red tagging (a process whereby a red tag is placed on all items not required to complete your job).
Red tagged items are moved to a holding area for evaluation. Occasionally used items are then moved to organised storage outside of the work area while unneeded items are discarded. Get an EMPTY external hard drive. If you don’t have one – buy one. These are two good models from Amazon: Freecom 500GB External Hard Drive and Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 1TB. Now move ALL of your files to your external hard drive. Delete all the files on your computer. But be careful not to delete your Documents, Pictures and Videos folders. Just leave them empty. In effect we’ve just ‘red tagged‘ all your files.
What are you working on?
Copy the folders corresponding to the projects you are currently working on back to your computer.
Be careful if you have a folder named clientA, containing sub-folders project1, project2, and project3 and you are currently working on project3. You’ll want to archive folder ClientA and sub-folders project1 and project2 (see step 3 below) and only move back the project3 subfolder back to your computer.
What else do you need to do your work?
In addition to project folders, I have a folder for accounting sub-divided into months and a folder of reference material containing pdf books about programming sub-divided into folders by programming language: php, python, ruby. I also have a library directory containing frequently used snippets of code and folders for photoshop brushes and patterns. Think about what you need and only keep what you really use.
Personal files and Music
I’ll write about how to organise your personal files such as your photos, and music in a future post. In the meantime copy them to a USB stick /drive. You wouldn’t leave your family’s old photo albums and your cd collection strewed round your office. Just can’t leave without music? Take this as an opportunity to discover new tunes and stream music from sites such as last.fm or the bbc iplayer, while we organise your music collection.
Archive Old Projects
Archive all the files and folders relating to old projects. Beforehand, do a quick sweep to make things more coherent. For example move folders with names like projectA_images to the projectA folder and gather up files that are not in their project folders. Apply the 80/20 principle here. These are your old projects and you don’t even know if you’ll ever look at them again. Use a compression tool such as winzip if appropriate and burn everything to DVD. Once the DVDs are burnt, make sure they are clearly labelled and move them to a storage cupboard. Delete the original files and folders on the hard drive as you go along.
Bin the Rest
If you are a Zen master – delete all the remaining files on the hard drive. If not, burn them to a DVD and label it with your name, the date and the title “Red Tagged”. Now put this DVD in your long term storage – and smile knowing you’ll never use it.
Shitsuke
Get your calendar and book a morning in three to six months time to repeat this exercise. Remember the 5th S - Shitsuke (躾) meaning ’sustaining the discipline’.
Liked this article? Check out how 5S can help you maintain a clean computer desktop.