The Role of Hustle

So, Monday, I will attempt to see if I can, through a standardized sequence and a good deal of hustle, shorten the hair and scrubbing combined time from four minutes down to two. That is all.

On Falling off of Wagons

I said I couldn't guarantee that I'd post again until Tuesday; well, it's Thursday...so did I break my word? The argument could be made that I never actually guaranteed anything, just clarified what I couldn't guarantee...is anybody buying this? Is anybody reading this?

Some observations:

Cooking oatmeal takes 2 minutes. This is not negotiable at all. Perhaps cooking my oatmeal the night before won't be such a bad idea...

Shaving may not be the best first target for cutting down shower time. Maybe hair and scrubbing...

Taking clothes, hangers, book, etc. back to the bedroom after showering takes a bit of time, and I think it disturbs my wife. Maybe I can eliminate this step?

These are just some ideas I got this morning, thinking again about morning routine time reduction, and trying to get back on the wagon.

Shower Shaving II: The Retiming

Shaving in the shower takes 4 minutes, according to new information released June 20. Tulsa resident Justin Fuller stated, "I thought it wouldn't be longer than shaving at the sink." This revelation comes after a day of intense internal debate regarding the efficiency of shaving at the bathroom sink after the shower or in the shower during the shower. "Shaving at the sink also left me with some dried blood on my face that I didn't realize was there until I returned home in the evening. And I was in a three-hour meeting with a corporate vice-president! Shaving at the sink really let me down," Fuller said before returning to folding diapers.

In a related matter, vacation starts tomorrow. I can't guarantee I'll update this at all until Tuesday. Peace.

Surprising Results

I missed Tuesday. At this point, my readership is nothing more than automatic webcrawlers, so I think I have only offended myself.

Shaving at the sink? 4 minutes. That is very surprising to me. I'm going to measure my shaving time in the shower again tomorrow, and see if the time really is 5 minutes. I would not have expected that being able to see my face would cut the total shaving time, even with the additional time of wetting my face again, cleaning up the sink afterward, etc. I hope to report again tomorrow.

Motivation Monday?

Sorry I missed the post on Friday; I was operating on about four hours of sleep, combined with only four hours of sleep the previous night. But Father's Day weekend was awesome! My wife let me sleep nine hours, and she gave me a 24-hour period with no chores!

So, I'm a little refreshed, ready to hit this a bit harder.

But I keep finding myself unable to imagine that shaving at the sink will take less time than shaving in the shower...

One Thing at a Time

It's best not to change multiple things at once. I understand that there are some advanced "Design of Experiments" concepts that allow you to statistically attribute causes even when you change multiple things at once, but I'm a simple man.

Last night, I went grocery shopping. Then I came home, put away groceries, ate dinner, and helped clean the house in preparation for having some friends over for dinner tonight. I got to bed after midnight and got up before five am. BUT I STILL FOLDED AND PUT AWAY THE DIAPERS BEFORE I WENT TO BED. VICTORY.

What do those two paragraphs have to do with each other? Well, I bought new razor blades last night. For the first time in probably five years, I'm shaving with a new blade. If I started shaving at the sink this morning, too, how would I know which change to blame for any improvements? Also, my wife just put a lot of effort into cleaning the sink and I don't want to mess it up.

Tomorrow, though, I fully intend to shave at the sink. And, for the record, I noticed no real difference in the amount of time it took to shave with the new blade, but the process felt better and I think the shave is closer. VICTORY.

Imagination

All right, so I am resolved not to spend money on reducing time. Unless I know that I can spend the time creating income, I have to imagine that there is no net gain economically, only in time. Thus, there is no monetary savings from which to purchase supplies like Tilex.

So what am I to do? The cool kids at LEI with their Lean Thinking talk about how it's generally preferred to attempt to reduce costs without spending a dime. Fancy software? Rarely justified. New tooling? Only considered after Lean principles have been implemented as far as they can go. So, it's time to get imaginative.

Or formulaic. Either one works. Let's return to the SMED steps!

So, the first step was to identify elements of the shower routine I could eliminate. There are none; I need to do all of these. So now the idea is to identify internal and external elements, and see if any internal elements can become external ones.

Since all of the elements have to be done in the morning, it doesn't really matter in terms of my goals whether the elements are internal or external.

This leaves us with optimizing the steps that exist. The biggest target is shaving. I wonder if shaving at the sink will be faster than shaving in the shower. (It'll probably be more accurate and less bleedy.)