Slow Progress?

Over the years we have lived with the inclination that, unless you’re making waves then your plans are bad or inefficient. This mindset is wrong and dangerous.

Everyone is not the same and therefore, their pattern of assimilation and productivity will not be the same. This brings us to the term “Continuous Improvement”.

No matter how much speed you go, as long as you are making effort towards improvement, you are making progress.

Continuous Improvement simply means ongoing effort towards improvement and in this article I will bring to your understanding, a technique that will help in not only achieving progress but continuous Improvement in progress in some simple steps.

Progress is Progress

First you must know, whether fast, slow, medium, no matter how much speed you go, as long as you are making effort towards improvement, you are making progress. Do not listen to what people are saying. You just have to continue being consistent, learning more about what you are doing and keeping at it diligently.

Some days it may seem like you’re going nowhere and the feeling really sucks. What you have to do that time would be to trust the process.

Kai-zen

Kai-zen is a principle rooted in progress and efficiency and such that believes progress comes gently. Kai-zen also means change for the better and truly, there’s no lasting change as change that begins slowly. So, take your time and improve, make intentional efforts towards this daily and see you change like a beautiful butterfly. Follow these steps to begin;

Kanban

Kanban is a Japanese word that means symbol. And in this technique, we’ll use symbols to help us become consistent and make progress. First we have to make what we call a Kanban board. This board will help us keep track of our progress.

Originally, the Kanban board is by Toyota manufacturing company to keep track of productivity and over the years it proved amazing.

First get a card board paper or a sheet of paper, then draw a box and divide it into 3 columns. On each column, write To-do, In progress and done. As you create tasks and finish them using the technique, you create a perception of yourself as someone who makes plans and fulfills them. This in turn eliminates self doubt and mental laziness as the ticks on the boards always appear reassuring.

PDCA

This is an acronym for Plan, Do, Check and Act. It is like self accountability for the process of making progress.

First you make a plan: This is will be the blue print of how you aim to achieve the kind of progress you have set your heart on. It is advisable that in making this plan, you do not ignore your weaknesses and things that might make you compromise. Include all.

To tweak this, you may set a timeline in which you aim to get this done. I always make mine short to encourage me to start and work on it.

Your plan must not be huge. It can be small and very precise, something you can achieve faster within a short period of time.

Do: This entails the effort you exert in getting this task done. Your task can be anything at all and what makes a difference in your plan is how you work towards the plan.

Check: This is going through what you have done. Reanalyzing the effort and making sure it is going to plan. In checking, you may almost always find that you’re making a mistake or you’re taking too long in keeping to a time frame. This part is to help you see where you’re making a mistake.

Act: This is the final step in this technique. This step is done after checking. Whatever result you get from checking you act on. This process is to enable you provide a solution to the problem you encountered while checking on the task and the action that is to be taken on it.

Conclusion

Progress is not magic, it’s the result of hard work and diligence, it’s the result of choice and the deep need for change . It is also a life long process.

You also have to be patient, progress does not always come in a day, it takes time and when it begins it doesn’t stop unless you allow it to stop.

If you have comments or questions please be sure to do so in the comment section.

You can also listen to the audio form of this post on this link: https://anchor.fm/joy-chidinma-dimgba/episodes/Ever-heard-of-Kai-zen-e1enhe0

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