Thursday, November 9, 2017
Think out of the Box Is Outdated, Think in High Definition Instead
Whenever I hear someone say “think outside the box”, I start to wonder why there is a box in the first place. Personally, I don’t think inside the box, I don’t think outside the box, I don’t even know where the box is!
We constrain our self when we box ourselves in. When we do this, we fail to see solutions outside of the status quo. If you have boxed yourself in… simply get rid of the box. For me, Lean Six Sigma helps to remove the box.
Think of watching a movie in high definition (HD), can you recall what an image looked like prior to HD television? Similarly, looking at the world through the lens of a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt or Master Black Belt provides us a high-resolution and clear image of a problem.
Lean Six Sigma is a skill that will not only improve our metacognitive capacity, but a skill that will improve our earning capacity as well. Some of the most successful businesses in the world use this as well. This one skill set will not only transform the way you think, but it will also make you extremely marketable to top organizations looking for change agents and problem solvers.
What is Lean Six Sigma?
Lean Six Sigma is an unconventional problem-solving approach that forces you to literally think outside the box. Some of the most successful people to walk this planet have used it. Jack Welch used it to transform General Electric and powerful companies such a Toyota and Amazon use it and similar approaches every day to radically improve their organization.
Lean Six Sigma is a customer focused and data-driven problem-solving method with the goal of improving quality, cost, and speed. It uses the DMAIC problem-solving methodology, where you:
- Define the problem
- Measure the baseline
- Analyze the process and find the root-cause of the problem
- Improve the process and implement best solutions
- Control the process and sustain the gains
Lean Six Sigma not only allows us the ability to solve a problem, but it educates us on what a problem is. A problem is essentially a gap between how we view reality and what reality actually is. It is a framework for understanding our paradigm and our mental models within the world we live in.
Now that you have a basic understanding of what it is and why you should learn it, let’s take a look at my top 4 tools and techniques within Lean Six Sigma.
Learning to See by Mapping Out Your Process
The first thing we must understand is that we must see the process and stop operating blind. You can learn to see by mapping out your process.
By mapping out the process from point to point, we find it easier to uncover waste. Furthermore, by mapping out a process we start to see an accurate picture with a higher resolution.
5-Why
Are you ready for a technique you mastered at the age of five, yet you forgot how to use? Simply (and annoyingly!) ask “Why?” over and over again.
The 5-Why technique is an extremely powerful and valuable tool allowing us the ability to peel away the layers of symptoms to get to the core of the problem.
Remove Waste
Waste in a process is whatever the customer defines it as. Once the customer defines his or her value, we must then prioritize our value-added activities.
First, immediately eliminate all non-value added activities that do not serve a purpose. Second, look at reducing the amount of non-value added required activities. These are things that add no value, yet are required by law or regulatory guidance.
One simple way to do this is to ask, “Why are we doing this?” and “Do we still need to do this?” Third, optimize those value-added activities, which are the things that are already working.
Pareto Principle
Using the 80/20 rule (based on the Pareto Principle), we can identify the 20% of actions causing 80% of the problem. Or looking at it from a different angle, we can identify the 20% of actions bringing in 80% of the profit. Named after Vilfredo Pareto, the Pareto Principle uses a Pareto chart, which is simply a visual aid for identifying “pain” or “opportunity” areas.
Seeing Beyond the Problem
Lastly, I recommend Blooms Taxonomy of Learning to determine if you are actually seeing a problem in HD. This is a good tool to use to make sure you are using your metacognitive skills and not simply regurgitating information.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Can you define or describe the problem?
- Do you comprehend the meaning of the problem?
- Can you apply the information you have?
- Are you able to break down objects into similar parts and analyze those parts?
- Can you rearrange or assemble ideas into a new whole?
- Are you able to evaluate and judge information based on evidence?
- Can you solve the problem, create something new, and describe your thought process to someone with no understanding of the problem?
I hope all these techniques I introduce to you can help you start to see a problem in HD and get rid of the box that stops you from coming up creative solutions.
The post Think out of the Box Is Outdated, Think in High Definition Instead appeared first on Lifehack.
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A Funny But Moving Film - The Big Sick
We tend to think that society is progressive, liberal, and open-minded. But then again, interracial and intercultural marriages are still noticed and frowned upon – especially with older generations. Traditional views still persist for many cultures within our country. When young people from different cultures fall in love, they often end up having Romeo-and-Juliet-type battles to fight for a chance to stay together.
Sometimes love prevails. But other times, a family is just torn apart by these relationships. Kids are disowned, couples end up eloping, or the relationship ends and both are simply heartbroken.
The Big Sick is a romantic comedy that follows an interracial couple’s journey as they deal with their cultural differences. It’s loosely based on the real-life romance between Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley) and his wife Emily Gordon.
From family disputes and match-making failures, to looking after a loved one who is ill and going through a near-death experience…The Big Sick has plenty of funny and genuine moments to convince viewers that true love will always prevail.
The main character, Kumail, is a Pakistani stand-up comedian, who meets an American graduate student named Emily during one of his stand-up shows. A one-night stand soon blossoms into a full-on relationship, but this leaves Kumail worried that his traditional Muslim parents will disapprove. When Emily comes down with an illness that leaves her in a coma, Kumail finds himself developing a deep and lasting bonds with her mother and father.
Arranged marriages are still fairly common among Pakistani families, where parents will often set up a series of dates for their children in hopes it will lead to marriage. And marrying outside of their culture is strictly forbidden. The Big Sick puts the spotlight on this sensitive but very real issue, when Kumail is consistently caught unaware by his mother inviting Pakistani women to their family dinners.
Kumail’s own brother is happy in an arranged marriage. The lighthearted acting and many authentic perspectives make this film a pleasure to watch. At the heart of the film is the idea that family ties are the ones that bind. Whether it’s Kumail’s traditional and narrow-minded family or Emily’s larger-than-life parents, the movie never fails to show just how deep and lasting family bonds are, no matter how difficult the challenges.
And the challenges seem insurmountable sometimes! It’s not easy to stand up for what you truly love or believe in, but if it’s something worth fighting for, this movie reminds us to persevere. That’s another big takeaway from this excellent film: The Big Sick finds light in the dark. A movie about a girlfriend in a coma and a man risking his family to be with her manages to be both funny and deeply, authentically moving.
If you like what you see, you can purchase the full film on iTunes. Watch the trailer here:
The post The Big Sick – A Modern Day Awkward Version of Romeo & Juliet appeared first on Lifehack.
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Paintings by June StrattonJune Stratton (b 1959) is a native of...
Paintings by June Stratton
June Stratton (b 1959) is a native of Northern California’s Bay Area where she attended the College of Fine Arts and Crafts in Oakland until 1979. She currently lives and works in both Atlanta and Savannah Georgia. With a 25-year span of successful exhibitions across the globe, her works have been acquired by many major collections.
My paintings are imagined blends of beauty and nature. These paintings are often intentionally idealized representations of emotional impressions from my dreams – entwined with elements of the earth, sky, and water that surround my real world. I use symbols and my feminine viewpoint to tell a very loose, abstracted narrative. As in my dreams, my muses cannot see all things, are sometimes unable to speak and frequently appear to be floating.
For more check out her Instagram.
Tired of searching all over for art? Look no further than our Facebook page.
posted by tu recepcja
Paintings by June StrattonJune Stratton (b 1959) is a native of... crss
Paintings by June Stratton
June Stratton (b 1959) is a native of Northern California’s Bay Area where she attended the College of Fine Arts and Crafts in Oakland until 1979. She currently lives and works in both Atlanta and Savannah Georgia. With a 25-year span of successful exhibitions across the globe, her works have been acquired by many major collections.
My paintings are imagined blends of beauty and nature. These paintings are often intentionally idealized representations of emotional impressions from my dreams – entwined with elements of the earth, sky, and water that surround my real world. I use symbols and my feminine viewpoint to tell a very loose, abstracted narrative. As in my dreams, my muses cannot see all things, are sometimes unable to speak and frequently appear to be floating.
For more check out her Instagram.
Tired of searching all over for art? Look no further than our Facebook page.
posted by tu recepcja
crssStill Tired After A Vacation? Here Is Why You Need Another
When you hear the word “vacation”, what comes to mind? For most it means having fun, indulging or pampering themselves to some degree or simply relaxing and catching up on sleep. Most people consider it a time to unwind and recharge away from work and the stresses of life.
However, the reality for some is that they end up feeling even more stressed and exhausted than they did before they went on vacation. Now, how is this possible?
Vacationing the Wrong Way
A common misconception that people have with going on vacation is that they need to make the most out of their trip. They go on every tour they can squeeze in or research 101 places to visit while at their destination and then pack 98 of those suggestions in their itinerary. While making the most of your time away–especially when visiting exotic locations is important, most people over-pack their schedule and overwhelm themselves with busyness which results in more stress and less rest.
In today’s overexposed social media and ultra tech-culture, it is even easier to forget the true meaning of the word “vacation.” Technology and social media has over-promoted and normalized sharing every experience we have–especially while on vacation. The saying, “if you didn’t post about it, did it really happen?” drives our current culture to document and share EVERYTHING.
You Instagram all your meals, snap chat every moment of your time on every tour and check into every “it” spot within 100 miles so you have plenty to post on Facebook. In fact, you spend more time taking the perfect selfie at every stop than you do actually participating in the activity. You end up sacrificing the quality of the trip for the quantity of posts you get out of.
This flawed “vacation” mindset results in:
Packing too many activities into the trip
You have been wanting to visit Italy for the longest time and you have 2 weeks. You want to make the most out of your trip so you squeeze in every activity (that you have researched on blogs and travel sites) you possibly can. Your vacation days begin early in the morning and ends in the wee hours of the morning. So, you wake up early, go to sleep late and are walking or running around the entire day… And you wonder your body is physically exhausted?
Booking oddly timed flights
In order to maximize your time off of work, you book the first flight out which leaves at the crack of dawn and catch the very the last flight home, with only a couple hours to spare before heading to work the next day. You return to work an exhausted, frazzled and unproductive mess.
Failing to disconnect
During your vacation, you were constantly checking and responding to work emails or completing tasks. Not only are you ruining your vacation because you are not fully present and living in the moment but you are perpetuating the stress you were trying to escape!
The same is true if you spend copious amounts of time snap chatting, Facebooking or Instgramming–updating and showing off for all of your friends and followers– you, again, miss so many beautiful moments.
Picking the wrong kind of vacation
If you intentionally want to take a break to relax and recharge, then you should pick a place or an activity that does not require intense energy physically (such as hiking to Mount Everest Base Camp) or is mentally draining to plan which counteracts the unwinding process.
Instead, do something that you enjoy or travel to a destination that is tranquil and has minimal distractions.
Vacationing the right way
Learning to appreciate that vacation or holiday time is a chance to unwind and that you shouldn’t feel overwhelmed with planning and trying to create the perfect vacation is the first key to having fun while still being refreshed.
It’s a great idea to enjoy the recommended hot spots, attractions, restaurants and activities, but understand and accept that there will be more activities than you have time for–don’t try to do it all.
Plan a vacation that provides you to be flexible. Eliminating the pressure of having to do it all will leave you feeling refreshed and motivated when it comes time to head back to work.
Keeping in mind the following will help you to better appreciate your vacation time:
Come home a day early
It’s always a good idea to give yourself one day to recoup before returning to work after a vacation. This allows your body and mind to adjust to being back home and get back into the groove of your work routine. Coming home at least a day before going back to work also allows you to settle in, unpack and do some catching up with work–checking emails–before going back into the office. This gives you room to breathe and reduces the anxiety and stress associated with the impending workload.
Take your time
The purpose of a vacation is to relax and enjoy yourself. So when you finally get to take that trip you’ve been looking forward to, take your time and work to be completely present during every experience. Accept the fact that there will always be more to see and do than you can possibly fit in your vacation. Relax and have fun.
Get Enough Sleep
Again, you want to go on vacation to recharge, so don’t over-crowd your schedule with late night and early morning activities. Make sure you rest and get plenty of sleep. It’s okay to schedule a lazy day during your vacation where you can sleep in and not be bound to an itinerary.
Don’t be too lazy
Just as it is critical to relax, your body also needs some activity to help you fight stress and to feel awake and alive. So don’t overdo it with the sleep and relaxing. Try to fit in the minimum recommended amount of daily exercise and if you don’t exercise take this as an opportunity to start a new habit. Start slow. This goes for sleeping, as well. Get the right amount of sleep for your body. Some people need eight or more hours of sleep per night, however, whatever is typical for you and leaves you feeling refreshed is the right amount of sleep for you. Too much sleep can actually backfire and leave you feeling lethargic, and foggy. As with everything, balance is key.
Relax and hang loose!
Everyone deserves a vacation or break every now and then to escape the day-to-day grind. It is crucial to ensure that the vacation you take does indeed serve its purpose of letting you feel relaxed and recharged again.
When you feel refreshed and motivated to head back to work, you can perform better and look forward to the next vacation!
Featured photo credit: Photo by Vladislav Muslakov on Unsplash via unsplash.com
The post Still Tired After A Vacation? Here Is Why You Need Another appeared first on Lifehack.
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littlelimpstiff14u2: Animated Artwork ‘‘ Between Worlds ‘‘ by... crss
The Conjuration of Bodhi
The Conclusion of origins
The Intruders Arrival
Quarrel at the Ball
Deep in the Stinging Woods
Gracing the Heartless one
Oh the joyful droplets
The centennial sun
crssAnimated Artwork ‘‘ Between Worlds ‘‘ by the Wonderful Vladimir Stankovic
Serbia-born, Denmark-based artist Vladimir Stankovic crafts enchanting GIFs that don’t just capture entire stories in each frame, but entire worlds. Mushrooms with nine eyes and spindly fingers interact with glowing aliens and woodland critter hybrids. The images, reminiscent of creepy-cute artists like Gary Baseman and Mark Ryden, channel an otherworldly sense of mystery inspired by mother nature and what lies beyond it. Txt Huffington Post|| H/T Lewsstalkmoreillustration
I have spent a long time today reducing these animations/gifs for tumblr, have come to love his work.
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