Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: StephenPSmith.com

In the first post of this series I introduced the first three of the five basic steps of the LEAN methodology:

1. Define the Value to the Customer
2. Map the Value Stream
3. Introduce Flow
4. Introduce Pull
5. Perfection

In this post we will discuss the concepts of Pull and Perfection. Jens Poder has already described the idea of pull, which I will quote here:

PULL in LEAN is all about appropriate reactions. A traditional industrial system tries to produce a large quantity of something, by forecasting (guessing) the demand, producing it, then putting the stuff on storage, and selling it on demand.

The problem in the traditional approach is that forecasting is pretty damned difficult to do. So 99% of the time you either underestimate or overestimate demand. Overestimating demand is bad because you end op with a lot of stuff you can’t sell at your target price, and then you loose money. Underestimating is just as bad, because reaction times in traditional industrial production are so slow, that you’ll have difficulties supplying the demand for outsold extra popular versions of your product, thus loosing potential sales and loosing money!

LEAN does it the other way around. It tries to get rid of forecasting alltogether, by making a superfast production chain, that reacts on customer pull. Production methods with fast change-over times and smaller output are favoured over superfast industrial machines, with high change-over times and large output. This makes the production system more ready to respond to demand.

Forecasting in your GTD practice translates as being aware of your appointments, responsibilities, and known demands on your time in the near future. As we all know, there are always the unkown variables and emergencies that will pop up and destroy the most carefully laid-out timetables.

Pull as a Trigger

Introducing the concept of Pull into your routine is achieved by recognizing emotional states or environmental situations that indicate that a certain task should be initiated now, rather than waiting for its alloted time.

For example, I balance my checkbook on a weekly basis, at that time I also write out the checks for the bills that are to be paid that week and double-check my receipts against the online bank statement. All of this information is kept in a folder, easily accessible to be reviewed on Wednesdays. If an extraordinary expense were to arise, that would be a trigger to sit down and do the balancing early, in order to account for the unplanned expenditure, and re-allocate any funds from Savings or Checking as needed.

As another example, I may be assigned a new, and time-consuming, project at work that will interfere with regularly scheduled, repeating activities. This would trigger a review of the hard landscape of my Calendar, in order to accommodate this project and still complete the other tasks.

Everyone will have their own set of triggers for varying sets of actions, here are a few that may be common to most people:

• I am not motivated - This is a time to check your activities against your principles. Are you subconsciously aware that you are working on something that is not taking you toward your goal?
• There is too much to do and no time - This should trigger a review of the hard landscape of your calendar. Block out appropriate time to get back in control, and eliminate some interruptions for a while.
• I don’t know what to do next - This trigger is a sign for you to clean up your Next Actions lists. There may be a host of completed items that are preventing you from seeing clearly what the next Next Action should be. Or perhaps you need to clarify your Contexts, i.e. is this an @Work NA, or is it a time-specific action that should be on the calendar?
• I am getting too much email - The answer to this trigger is to quickly scan the unopened emails, looking for those that you know are vital and important. Move them into a temporary folder. Delete the rest. This may seem harsh, but if you did not recognize the importance of a sender/subject, then it is likely that it was not very important. Ifone of the messages was important, they will get back to you.
• Where did I put that paper/letter/note, etc? - This means that it is time to un-clutter your reference files. It is perfectly okay to have one piece of paper in a file-folder that is properly labeled. Trust me.
• I do not feel like I’m getting anywhere - This trigger is a common one, especially when tensions are high. Take a good look at the Someday/Maybe list and your long-term goals - are you closer to achieving any of them? What is one thing that you can do today/this week to get closer to accomplishing one of those goals?

As you can see, these triggers set off actions/tasks that are (or ought to be) handled during the Weekly or Monthly Review. Sometimes, however, there is no time to wait for that appointment to arrive. The premise of LEAN is to eliminate waste, and sitting there being unproductive and demoralized while you wait for the scheduled review is all waste.

Getting Over Yourself

The idea of Perfection means just that, reviewing and analyzing your performance, monitoring your flow, and acting on the triggers that induce a Pull response. Perhaps you will notice that your carefully planned agenda for the week never survives the Tuesday afternoon Staff Meeting. Stop doing your calendar planning at a time before that meeting. Get the new information/assignments and then make your agenda. Carry it through to the following Tuesday. A simple change like this can save hours of time and immense amounts of frustration.

Do not forget or omit the idea of doing some creative thinking as part of your Weekly Review. As time goes by, you will be able to see areas for improvement without having to invest large chunks of time in this type of evaluation. Set an appointment with yourself for a time that you will not be interrupted, do this at least once a week, to go over what has been done, and clean up the lists of Next Actions that remain.

This is your time, and you must invest it wisely.

Suggested Reading

Here are a few additional posts that may be helpful to you in evaluating your GTD practice:

• Three Steps to Improved Time Management
• Manage Yourself First
• Don’t Try to Remember Everything

The next post in the series will look at incorporating LEAN into your current responsibilities and 1-2 Year Goals.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5msptt. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen