Tag: Goals

OUTLIERS

Despite common belief, outliers are not farmers who were out sleeping in their field. If you are a farmer out lying in your field, you are the exception. Outliers are facts, ideas, people, actions, stocks, figures, and data that are outside the norm.

Most everybody likes to be part of the group. They believe there is safety in numbers, that we all hang together or we all hang separately, and that those who do not follow the norms are weird or eccentric or just need to be avoided.

The truth is a little bit different. If you stand with the group, you are not distinguished from everyone else in that group. When massive layoffs come, the company doesn’t need the group. The company needs a core set of people who perform. It’s hard to distinguish that if you’re hiding in the group.

There is much talk today of many job types going to automation.  Everything from journalists to drivers to construction.  If the job you love is in one of these areas, you want to be the outlier that people cannot do without.

Here is what outliers look like on the chart.

Here is a chart of 100 people ranked as to their reputation at work they do.  The mean rating is 55.5.  The average rating is 54.28.  There are actually 22 people from 39 to 45. On the chart between 45 and 54, there are 30 people.  There are 34 people from 55.5 to 63 and 12 people from 64 to 69.

Seeing outliers

 

Then there are 2 outliers.  The lower one has a 3, and the upper one has a 99.  If I read this and can keep only an employee or 2, who do you think I’m going to keep? Hire the worker with the 99 rating.

If I am a new company or company whose hiring someone, you think I would hire rating number 57 who is hiding in the middle of the pack, or rating number 99 who is setting the pace?  Who would work for you?

If you don’t think that this is going on today or that it is just a fad, go online and do some research. Look at the TEDx talks, also look at the videos on how Amazon is running at Seattle warehouse.

Uber is testing its driver-less cars now in Pittsburgh, and driver-less trucks are doing well in the West. The trucks could be the norm in some states by the end of the year.

Are you not affected? The driver-less truck never needs to stop for coffee, and a driver-less taxi rarely pulls through a fast food drive-through to pick up a meal.  Who else gets touched by this?  There are positives and negatives in everything.

I do not tell you these things to worry you. I look at these things because it is important for you to prepare for what comes next. Even if the only thing you know right now is there will be change, and you should be ready for a change.  Change is overall a good thing.

On Your Mark, Get Set, Start

Have you noticed how hard it is sometimes just to get something started?

Sometimes, it seems, we can sit and look at a problem for hours, days or weeks. Sometimes we can’t stand it, and we have to fix it right away.

I used to wait till everyone else went to bed. I used to wait to rearrange the room, paint the walls or clean the kitchen. I could get more done, I felt, by doing it was no one else around. Unfortunately, my body talks to me now an action such as that it no longer tolerates.

I often wonder why it is that it’s so hard to get started, and much easier to keep going when something is started. I look back to the physics of motion. It takes much more energy to start an object into motion than it takes to keep it in motion. You would not think that that would be true of the mind, and yet the mind is connected to a physical body. That connection makes it totally plausible.

This weekend I think I found, if not the answer, at least an answer that works for me. And of course, like Pavlov’s dog, it deals with action and reward. To answer your question no I did not salivate, and my reward was not dog food. Nor did I sit around waiting to hear a bell.

This weekend, I cleaned rooms, did laundry, straighten the place up, and other chores. As a reward, I worked on one of my many paintings that sat for years waiting for attention. The Canvas is an old under-painting of a part of the Grand Canyon with echoing  walls. I had always wanted to work on it and complete it, and time was never there. As a reward, I sat down for an hour and started painting on it. Changing the sky, starting thunderclouds and rain, and even dropping in part of the golden orange background as the sun is sets.

We know that we are social creatures, creatures of desire, and creatures who do like work and rewards. The painting, as a reward, did not cost me anything. I had all the resources. I know that within that hour of work I now have three new mistakes on the canvas I need to fix. And, I also know that I have five dollars in my pocket that say this thing will never hang in the Louvre. Nevertheless, it was the happiest hour I had in some time. Because after a decade, I started painting again.

What are your rewards? They do not have to require expenses, and quite often the simplest things mean more. What did you used to love to do that you don’t anymore? And, what would you do to have that experience again? If you figure that out, you now know your true motivators.

It is the motivators that get things done.

Pareto Chart

Hi, there this is Mike.

I want to thank everybody who wrote in earlier this week and answered my three questions. The more I know about what you are looking for, the easier it is for me to develop the content you like and can use.

We plan to double down on the things you like while improving some of the ways we deliver the content. Just because I’m not asking every day what you like or don’t like and what you can use or cannot use, does not mean that we’re not interested. As you find entries that are useful, please let us know. If you find things you can do without, that’s even more important for us to know.

I know some people are concerned because they’re afraid if they make a comment, they will end up on my mailing list somewhere.  I’d make everybody this promise, “I will never put anyone on a mailing just because they commented on one of my blogs.”

If you would wish to be on my mailing list, please let me know. Otherwise, reading and commenting on the blog will not put you on a mailing list. This is a promise between friends, me and you.

As promised, today we are looking at a real Pareto chart.  I was going to use a computer build line to show it.  I thought it would be better if I used SAM and his scenario as the backdrop for this.  We all know about SAM’s work.

SAM has been keeping a tick sheet with the number of each type of problem he encountered.  This was before everything got fixed last week.  The tick sheet looked like This:

 

Problem Occurrences Tic marks
Car will not start 6 XXXXXX
Lost car keys 10 XXXXXXXXXX
Saw snakes 2 XX
Had to borrow money 1 X
House over 80° 1 X
Total 20

 

Once SAM collected these numbers, then he could make the Pareto chart. You often hear that the Pareto chart shows where 20% of your problems cause 80% of your work

Rear Real Pareto

The chart shows us what to tackle first to get rid of the biggest hitters. Very small numbers are showing minutia. Minutia is a word for all those little bitty annoyances, they don’t cause the big problems and fixing them won’t fix the big problems. That’s why we use the Pareto chart so we can identify and fix the largest problems first.

Once those problems are fixed, guess what, the smaller problems have moved up to be the largest of the problems. This is presuming another unknown large problem has not shown itself yet. And once the medium and smaller problems are now our top problems, we can turn attention to those and fix those also. We don’t leave problems unfixed, we just fix them in order.

I hope this helps.  Tomorrow I will have a new article, and next week I will start a story that is told in graphics and pictures.

Have a great day.

This is why

Thank you for joining us again. We are glad to have you here with us today.

This week we have been working on how to wrangle an overwhelming set of larger-than-life problems into a set of easily workable solutions.

As you seen over the last few weeks, this is absolutely possible. It starts when you admit there are problems, you do an affinity diagram to get an idea of the total landscape concerning the processes. Create a cause-and-effect chart so that you can see the causes that are happening right now and you see the effect you’re having right now. Knowing now the effect that you have and the effect that you want to have, which are probably two different things, you can now look at what causes you might be able to change to make the effect better.

Next thing you want is real data. If you remember, earlier we were working on the home front and as such using some anecdotal information. In business and home efforts, the more data you can gather, the better your efforts are going to be to correct and improve concerns.

In business, we find ways to place measurements on those things we are concerned about. It can be as simple as somebody doing a process and keeping a tic sheet of problems. The measurement could be as elaborate as automated or semi-automated shop floor data collection systems that gather information every time a unit is moved from one location to another, or as critical parts are added. Shop floor data collection system (SFDC) works great for business.

An example of how the SFDC system helped me to find and correct a problem on the assembly line when people from the line started coming to me one day and telling me that there were big problems. They said everything was the moving slow and there were many units that had to be reworked due to poor workmanship and scratched parts.

The first thing I did was pull up the data on the computer. The data showed me that there had only been two items that had to be reworked. One was a screw that was not properly seated, and the other was a cable that was not properly plugged-in. There was no mention of scratches.What worried me though was a line that was supposed to put out 50+ units in an hour, only about 17 units per hour were being completed and packed.

I had been on the line at shift change that morning, and everything looked fine then. That was just three hours ago. I went back out to the production line, and yes it was backed up. I started going station to station to and asking people how things were. In short time, I found out that the quality technician at the end of the assembly line was finding many build problems. The quality technician was trying to make the line look better, so rather than reporting the problems in the SFDC system, was repairing all the problems rather than sending them to rework.

I got with a line supervisor and had the line stop for a quick meeting. I explained everybody why it is important to everyone involved that we use the system correctly and that we actually record all problems and record all repairs. I also explained that the reason for the use of that system was so that I could actually see the problems that were happening on the line. I could quantify them, and then I could change the processes to eliminate the causes of those problems. I also had to explain everybody that when they log such problems they were not getting themselves or anyone else in trouble. They were actually doing what was required and what the engineering department needed to make the processes better and easier for them to use and make everyone’s job easier.

After that, I got better data and was able to design much better processes which allowed for higher quality and easier assembly.

I have also had times where people came in and complained that every other screw was not inserted properly. Going out and doing spot checks on the line, I found out that the shop floor data collection system was correct. Only two screws had been not fully seated, and everything else was fine. A couple people on the line were just having a bad day. I talked with them and was able to let them vent their frustration (which were personal, and not about the build), and then they were able to complete their shift without having the concerns, which really weren’t there to start with. In both cases, without eyes on the line and the shop floor data to show what was real and what was not, as the engineer I would not have been able to make the right calls and build the right processes.

In the first scenario that we looked at wrong data would have led to a poor status quo because the processes would not have changed. In the second scenario, having the correct information allowed us to keep processes that were working, and identify and fix the true concerns.

This is why we will also go back and look at the Pareto chart in other uses. I will give you ideas for how it can work at work and how it can work at home.

Before I leave you today, I need to ask a favor. This favor is to help me to better help you. The question is, are these posts on quality and process improvement something you want to learn? Or do you want to learn something else?

I ask you this because I’m taking two courses this week (yes, teachers take a lot of courses.) We are at the part of the course where we are ensuring that the classes we write are classes wanted by the folks who read us. If there’s something else, you would rather learn, please let me know. I would be more than glad to write on those topics also. If you have any thoughts or ideas, please let us know in the comments section on the blog. I will contact you and try to make other subjects happen.

Thank you for reading this today and thank you in advance for your thoughts, ideas, and comments.

 

The Problem Ranking and Planned Fix Chart

Welcome back we’re glad to have you with us again. If you’re new, we are glad to have you too.

We are looking at various ways we can use process improvement tools in our daily life. If this is your first time joining us, or you joined recently, you may wish to look back at the blogs from June 5 and coming forward. It will give you a better idea of what we are doing.

Yesterday I talked with SAM, and he added to his list. It is below in the form of a chart, and we will get to it in a few minutes. First, though, I need to tell you that what we are going to do today is a highly modified Pareto chart. Pareto charts are usually built on data rather than just anecdotal information.  After we do this for the home, I will also (next week) make a Pareto chart for a work situation so you can see the difference.

For now, how can we take the every day and add quantifying data? It’s not as difficult as it seems. Let’s look at the problems, and next to them (in the chart below) we will add some data I was able to glean for some of them. Remember antidotal problems are still problems. Fixing problems is just easier when you can measure them.

Here are the concerns and what SAM has told me:

  • SAM said that there were snakes in the yard and it was too hot to cut. When I talked to him, he said they had seen eight snakes in the last month. We have data we can use.
  • In winter, there is little heat in the house. We moved that statement to down the list. SAM said it barely gets over 60° in the house during some storms. Now we have data and identification of a health risk due to possible hypothermia. Yet right now it is summer.

I think you get the idea on finding some data for measurements.  There were talks and discussions. The same friends who helped with the affinity chart came over and helped them to think of ideas on how to rank the problems and cure them. For where they were, and what was going on, everyone it is agreed it would be okay to ask for little support.

Talking to others is great. A few neighbors, worried about the lot volunteered to help the next Saturday. Another neighbor had a good mechanic who needed some copywriting done for ads he wanted to run. SAM is working to be a writer. A trade of services could greatly reduce the costs of getting the car fixed. The mechanic got ads, and SAM got to work on a project with his writing skills.

The landlord was invited over for fried chicken dinner that was supplied by SAM, his wife, and his mother-in-law. The landlord appreciated the good-looking lot. All the noise created by everyone working (and being very careful) and making a lot of noise scared away the snakes.

Talking to the landlord, the idea of saving money on the water bill was viewed as a great idea, and he personally came over the next week and replaced all the washers in all the faucets.

Below is the chart that shows the ranked problem areas, the measurement, and the fixes.  As I said this is not the normal use of a Pareto, and I will show you a regular Pareto chart in action, next week.  For now, we will call this chart ‘The Problem Ranking and Planned Fix Chart’

Problem Ranking Problem Data Fix
1 SAM said that there were snakes in the yard and it was too

hot to cut.

 Saw eight snakes in the last month. In the early morning next Saturday, the group of neighbors who found out about this problem while talking to SAM will come over and have a house party to help them cut the yard and fix the place up. We thank SAM’s mother-in-law for talking to friends and helping to get this started.
2 Car needs to be fixed Car failed 3 times in one month The car failed to start three times in the last month. That is the problem and the data. This moves to number two on the list. It is now July, and the house heater has until November when it will be truly needed. Lack of transportation isolates people.
3 Money in is less than money out. Income per month is $1500, and pay out to bills is $1750 School debt, minimum-wage, and credit card debt can be put into one item. Money needs are not supported by the wages earned. Add up to everything that must be paid in the month and all the monies that are brought in in a month. If the income is less than the payments required, there is the data.
4 SAM and his wife needing jobs better jobs Quality of life and ability to meet each person’s potential We combined both into one item. This is not a matter of “Gee, I don’t want to work,” it is a matter of them fulfilling their potential. They cannot quit and hold. However, they can seek and find.  With the car fixed, they found good jobs in a medium sized city, just a 15 mile drive each way.
5 House too hot in summer Uncomfortable Their next-door neighbor had 2 fans in the attic doing nothing.  These were loaned to SAM and his wife
6 Too cold in the winter Health Hazard The landlord had the heater inspected, and all the vents cleaned.
7 Poor shopping choices considering the income Too Costly An agreement to stay within a set meal budget was agreed to, and a garden was planted in the now snake free yard.
8 Being overwhelmed Too many problems with not enough ideas SAM and his wife learned many good skills from their friends studying process improvement.  Those skills now serve them at home and at work.
9 Cranky Landlord Scary Everyone responds well to positive communication, collaboration, and a great fried chicken meal.

We will continue tomorrow with how data can help show a hidden factory.

Have a great Day.

 

 

 

 

 

SAM’s List

Thank you for allowing me to be back with you again.

I hope you had a chance to read yesterday’s blog and make a list of those concerns and problems which are trying to overwhelm you. One thing to remember is that you were rarely alone.

Because I do not know the specifics of everyone’s problems or what their list may hold, it would be wrong for me to suggest somebody perform a set of action items based on that list. Yesterday we talked about making a list, and the lesson plan called for you to make a list. This list will be for your use after we’ve gone through this week’s lesson.  By the end of the week, you should have a good idea of how it works.  If you want to ask questions at that point, please write or call me, and we can talk about them,  The list is a starting point so you can try what SAM is working on right now.

Remember SAM? We looked in on SAM last week. He was having problems, and we watched as he made an affinity diagram, and a cause-and-effect chart (Fish-bone diagram.) Cause-and-effect charts and affinity diagrams are great for pointing out concerns and problems. By changing the causes, you are able to change the effects.

SAM made a list last night.  SAM is a pretty smart avatar. And we are going to look at his list  and help to get things sorted out.

Sam’s list looks like this:

SM'S PRO

+= a safety concern     * = a Health Concern

The big thing to remember when you start looking at problems is that you are not alone.  You may have friends, family, significant others, social clubs, religious organizations, or neighbors. You also have this blog. Please remember that nothing is so horrible it can’t be worked out and good remedies taken. And also, please remember the rules of numbers. One person can be fooled, overtaken, or defeated however some people working as one can easily win the day.

SAM did a pretty neat job on his list. I did notice he left out some of the concerns he had listed earlier.  Although everything gets tackled in an order according to how it affects the overall flow of the home and work, if an item is not on the list, it misses getting considered.  The list will be in great turmoil if it is unnecessarily interrupted.

Please notice that SAM noted safety and/or health concerns.  Putting these issues towards at the top of things to fix helps to save money and heartache in the long run.

Did you leave anything off your list?  It is better to acknowledge a concern than to ignore it.  Ignored items have a tendency to come back and get us.

Consider this and tomorrow we will help SAM (who will have a complete list ready) to plan his order of attack on the problems and have some solutions ready to go.

I think you are really going to like the actions and ideas SAM and his friends have in store for tomorrow.

Thanks for being with us today.

SAM

Today, I am giving you the case study of SAM. SAM is in all caps to distinguish him as an avatar. SAM is an avatar I use to demonstrate how tools work.  I like to use avatars because no one wants me to put their real information out to the public

I am often asked, who do I write for and who do I design my courses for. The people who ask these questions often want to know the age, gender, what the people had for dinner last Tuesday night, and specific problems of my students. I am not sure that that truly captures the people I work for and with.

I am writing for people who find themselves wishing or needing a transition from one stage to another in life. For the majority of people, you might say, someone over 55 is looking to transition from full-time work to retirement and possibly part-time work or a business of their own. For those between 38 and 43, the desire is often a new profession. For those between 26 and 32, there is a desire to ensure they are on the right path to their goals in life. And, those just exiting formal training for the first time, whether high school or college, want to ensure they emerge successfully into the job market.  I promise to share case studies for each of these as time goes on. I just want to remind you that we are people and not statistics.  Some people do different things at different times.  That is all right.  It is known as being human.

For now, we are going to start with Sam who graduated college at age 24, is about to turn 26 and finds himself unhappy, frustrated, and unable to find a path to where he wants to go in life. Finances, location, lack of local employment, and other factors all play into this. Yet SAM is lucky because SAM has friends, and friends know how to find the paths.

SAM

Sam’s Background

Sam is a regular guy from Any-town, USA.  He just graduated college about a year and a half ago. He married his high school love and got one of the few jobs the town had to offer, a food service worker, at the Dairy Duke.

Sam wants to be a writer. He wants the American dream. Unfortunately, a new family in a small town just starting out life finds there are many hurdles to overcome before dreams start to come true.

Sam’s not happy because he can see that he and his wife are not going anywhere and seems not to be able to find a better path. Sam’s wife isn’t happy, she thought marriage was going to be bliss. Sam’s mother-in-law likes Sam, yet she wants to see him reach out and do something for himself and her daughter.

A couple of friends who were studying process improvement offered a game or two which might help Sam out and help him and his wife to find their path. Sam was not sure at first; however, when his car refused to start for the third time in a month, he figured, “what do I have to lose.”

The team came over to his house and talk to the assembled folks. Sam had invited his mother-in-law, and his sister-in-law tagged along to see what was happening. The team explained about what they were learning in school and offered their services for free to help Sam and his wife find their way.

After talking for a little a while, the team played the affinity game with them to see how everybody felt and what problems there might be. And yes, there were some problems.

Sam's Affinity chart

 

Everybody had fun with the affinity game, and new ideas started to spring up. The infinity game (chart above) led to a Fish-bone diagram (below) which led to many other interests. I would tell you more now, except that may spoil some of the things to come. Therefore, we will start by taking a look at the affinity chart, and the Fish-bone diagram and that will start us on the way to helping to solve Sam’s problems.

Sams Fishbone

Tomorrow we will press on and see where this leads.

 

The Affinity Game

Howdy!

I am very proud of all my sons.  They have each graduated college and are doing fantastic in their fields of endeavor. Especially my son who is a Ph.D. and a tenured college professor. I was amazed that he was published three times as an undergraduate. In all three times, the papers dealt with games. I knew I should’ve stayed in college. That is okay I am developing some new games that we can play.

I hope you were with us in our last session when we discussed and went through a scenario on solving a problem and overcoming a Band-Aid fix.

Every time you have a problem pop up, and is reoccurring, it is developing what we call a hidden factory within your normal life. The hidden factory is something you don’t normally plan on, and yet it happens. Hidden factories steal time and money.  Usually both.

Sometimes we have so many small problems that keep vying for our attention, we don’t know which one to fix first. Sometimes we end up focusing on a small set of problems that are annoyances while missing either more costly problems or items that may be safety issues.

To help keep the larger problems from creeping up on us from behind, it is good to keep an eye on them, and even rank order what you need to fix first and what may be able to wait a little while until you have a better time or better money. To do this, you can play a game with an affinity chart. You can get the whole family, significant others, and/or friends involved in this. I like to make a party out of the affinity game. Have some soda and popcorn or some coffee and cake, or just good friendship. The game requires some post-it notes, a place you can put the Post-it notes, and something to write on them with.

This is a problem hunting game. Think of it this way, what items are giving me grief, taking my time, or taking my money? If I want to save time and money, I need to identify them and start to fix them. If there is something that would cause harm, or flood the house, I want to fix that one first. If I have a screen that is loose, I do want to fix that, I just may need to fix something else first.

In the affinity game,  use five headings.  The headings are People, who are those who are affected, family and/or friends. Plans, they are the overall goals, not just the problems. Processes, how we do things such as pay bills, buy groceries, etc.. Prosperity, the paycheck and other resources we use. Lastly, Papa Nature, the environmental concerns such as living in tornado alley or near a flood plain. You want to write these five areas on separate Post-it notes and place them on a whiteboard, a wall that won’t be marred, or some other flat surface where you can put plenty of other Post-its below each one.

To start out, go around the room, and each person puts one Post-it note under a heading with one item they think could be done better. Just list the item. Don’t give ideas for fixes or long written descriptions now. It is probably good to have somebody act as the facilitator for this. You could even spark interest by having the child or teenager be the facilitator. The facilitator also places post-its on the chart when it is his or her turn.

If more than one person hands in a Post-it note with the same item or nearly the same item on it, that is okay. Put those Post-it notes on top of each other. The fact that there are multiple Post-it notes shows a deeper concern in that area.

You can limit the affinity game to an hour, or you can keep on going until no one else has anything that they can think of to put on a Post-it. The more Post-its, the better because you’re getting ideas out there. And every idea is of value to the person who had it. Every person is also valuable to the family or team as a whole.

When the game is done, everybody should thank each other and tell each other that everyone is important to the family or the team. The nice thing is now you have information.

You have gathered data. It is believed, and talked of, and is yet to be proven. It is, however, valuable data because it is a start.

Next time we will take what has been learned here with the affinity diagram and learn how to use it in our next step.

Thank you for being with us.

Everybody loves to learn something new

Everybody loves to learn something new. It makes us feel good to know something new. Learning keeps us young in heart and soul. Although we love to learn, no one likes to be taught. There are several negatives which have a tie to being poorly taught. My goal is not to teach you. My goal is to help you learn.

As soon as you mention things such as TQM, 8 – D, Six Sigma, or any of the other quality and process improvement techniques, you automatically find yourself the only person standing in the room. Everyone else ran. Most hate these classes.

Everyone who was ever ordered to take a process improvement class has a right. And everyone who wasted time sitting through endless meetings trying to figure out something to change has a right. And, all those who put up with the corporate politics of leaders who would never let the change happen, has a right to hate the subject.

We are not going to do that here.

You are a smart person. And you are responsible. Everybody has different responsibilities. You may have a house or an apartment, a family and/or a pet, and bank accounts and credit cards which you maintain. You are pretty good at the things you regularly do. And you’re probably a whiz at some others. Don’t let anyone put you down.

Everybody has things that go well and things which tend to go off the rails from time to time. I’m here to show you a few ideas you can learn to do, which will keep the same thing from going off the rails every six weeks or so.

Ever have a small problem that interrupts the momentum of your morning? For me, about once every six weeks I can’t find my car keys. When I come back to look for them, I am accused of losing them for good, and we will never be able to drive the car again!

They usually have fallen out of my pants pocket. Or, were left in a jacket or pants which I had used the day before. On rare occasions when I’m carrying things in both hands they end up left stuck inside the front door knob overnight. Good thing I lock the screen door.

To this annoyance, I usually apply what’s known as a Band-Aid Fix. Something super fast, super cheap, and something allows for the annoyance to be ignored until the next time it happens. The bad thing about this type of a fix is that it guarantees whatever the annoyance is it will happen again, and probably sooner than later.

My Band-Aid Fix to this is to set out a bowl on a table or nightstand which I plan to put the contents of my pockets into nightly. How often does this actually happen? Usually, the first night I set the bowl out and occasionally the second. I’m not a bad person, I just get busy and forget. Therefore, it is only a Band-Aid cure and guaranteed to happen again at regular intervals.

Because I work for myself (I think that is called a vow of poverty,) I have time to look for the keys. If I had to be somewhere at a particular time, I could be in trouble. So what is a better thing that I could do to ensure I knew exactly where my keys are first thing in the morning?

Are we going to write a long and lengthy process and perform follow up on it every six months? Absolutely not! What’s the smart thing to do? Because it’s my wife and me, we could take a few minutes and think about it.

Some ideas could be as simple as having a key rack with hooks by the door, where I place my keys when I come home and take them when leaving. The key rack could be in plain sight so we could both keep an eye on whether or not we were using it.

Another option, we could hide keys outside the house because if the keys are hanging inside the house, sooner or later, we will end up locking ourselves out. Unfortunately, neither one of us are trusting enough souls to hide keys outside the house.

Another option might be to purchase a key finder. Amazon has a plethora of key finders that work with everything from a whistle to your smartphone. Cost is usually somewhere between $15, and $24.  There are more expensive and less expensive models.

So on a five-minute conversation with your significant other, (maybe 10 minutes,) you discuss the situation with someone and come up with three good ideas. Which is best? It’s not for me to say, it is whichever method is most foolproof for you. Usually, the best processes remove human intervention.

Just a side note, when I can’t find my smartphone, I use the house phone to call the smartphone, and then I walk around the house trying to hear it ring. Always great to have a backup.

Thank you for being with us today.  Until next time, we wish you well.

The Right Tool Always Works Best

Do Not Try This at Home.  Have you ever tried to put a nail into a board by pushing it in with your fingers? Or maybe just banging it in with your fist? It could get painful. Have you ever tried to drill a hole for dowel with your fingernail or really dig into it with the thumbnail? DO NOT try any of these methods. There are better ways. Just a few minor manual tools such as a claw hammer and a hand drill would not only be safer and less dangerous, they would get the job done a whole what faster.

Tools are a wonderful thing. Tools are there to assist you to do a job that you want to get done. The right tool always works best when used for the right job. There are manual tools and power tools, a screwdriver will open a can of paint, but it can also slip and cut your hand. Believe it or not, most stores will give you for free a little key to open your paint can easily and safely.

You don’t have to have fancy power tools all the time. A cordless drill always helps, or the circular saw if you cut a lot of wood. Yet, there is nothing more fun to watch, nor anything more enjoyable than seeing the happiness in a kid as he uses his first manual tool set to build his first birdhouse or his first sailboat. Although inexperienced, the young one is thrilled with his first tools.

Tools aren’t limited to carpentry. Mechanics have many types of tools to help every day. And, we have other great tools at our disposal.  I had a birthday yesterday which helped to remind me I am not the youngest rooster in the barnyard. I do not mind the slow walk toward senior citizenship, it does bother me when I feel I am acting the senior citizen stereotype.

The nice thing is, there is help using the right tools to keep me on point. Just like the carpentry tools, these tools can be very simple and manual or very complex and powerful. We need to play with them to understand which ones are right for each of us. Whatever we use, these tools should not cost us an arm and a leg. It doesn’t matter how much we would like to turn in that arm or leg for new one.

The last three weeks, we looked at goal setting and building a map to where we wanted to go in life. This week started out with a wonderful tool called a decision tree which helps you to record how you work on a problem or solution. The work can be done on a piece of paper, a notebook, on a tablet or a computer.

The decision tree doesn’t have to be fancy to be effective.  Simple is just as good. I’m sure there are people designing software to make the tree quite complex.

The simple fact, the decision tree is a tool. It won’t do everything for you, but it will help you with the task you’re trying to complete. I would like to show you some other tools you use to accomplish what you want to do, help keep your tasks straight, help show  what should be done first, help determine what is value-added, and what is not value-added. And, a few other things

If the tools start to look like something from process improvement class, you are probably right. Are we going to force everybody into groups to talk for hours each week and drag out long decisions over storyboards and printed slide presentations?  Oh, heavens no! We are going to simply take some tools and mold them, so they work for the needs of each of us. This means you’ll get to customize your tools to better do what you want to be done. In the end, the tools will help you to be on time, pay the bills when due, keep in touch with others, make better decisions, and save some money by spending it more wisely.

Bottom line, I’m not writing about the tools, is much as I’m writing about what you can do with them.

Have a great day and tomorrow will start with our next tool.

Thanks for being with us.