I’m Keeping A Kaizen Diary!

As I’ve mentioned a few times already in these blog posts, I have a budding interest in Kaizen.

According to Wikipedia:

Kaizen is a concept referring to business activities that continuously improve all functions [of the business].”

Incidentally, during this morning’s interview for The Borderliners Podcast, I touched upon this tangentially.

We somehow got to discussing my interest in dried goods — during which I disclosed that I attempted, last week, to obtain a 25KG back of chickpeas by attempting to convince food wholesalers to sell to me (yes, recommendations for therapists can be sent here!).

This obviously draws the question “why?” — and most anticipation some version of “because I think the world is about to end.”

25KG of rice — it just doesn’t look right without an accompanying industrial-sized sack of chickpeas

Unfortunately, I am not preparing a community soup kitchen / refuge in the event that the Iranian nuclear program comes to fruition, G-d forbid.

However, as I had this conversation only a few days ago — after spending long hours next to my giant rice bag scouring my subconscious for reasons why I find owning bulk food quantities inherently appealing — I had a response on hand for the podcast which went something like this:

“I believe that real change happens slowly and incrementally — by making one positive change after another over weeks and months. When you buy 25KG of dried goods, you’re not buying chickpeas for a week, or a month. You’re buying for six months or even for a year. If you start that sack of chickpeas as a mediocre humus-maker or a so-so purveyor of chana masala by the time you get to the end of it you’ll probably be an artisan — or at least very good. You’ll also be a completely different person when you start and finish that bag . Older, but hopefully also better”

(I’m sure students of psychoanalysis could find plenty of other reasons. Perhaps I have a scarcity mentality and really do feel a need to get my hands on wholesale quantities of dried goods while I still can. Perhaps my ancestors perished in the Great Potato Famine and — had they had a grain warehouse — may have enjoyed a better fate? Perhaps I’m just crazy? One can only speculate.)

In other words, I think that my strange desire to own bulk quantities of dried goods is a physical manifestation of planning to stick with cooking for a long time, through thick and thin. It is a culinary echo of the 10,000 Hour Rule. (I also have an early childhood memory of visiting a catering supplier as my mum was buying corporate gifts around the holidays. I don’t remember the cases of wine she presumably bought. But I do remember the cement bag sized sacks of oatmeal and those delightful industrial catering tubs of ketchup and mayonnaise!)

When I think about the only other good which I have bought large quantities of — coffee — I find an interesting counterpoint.

If buying 25KG of rice represents the acting on of a subconscious desire to nourish oneself on basic foodstuffs for a long time, while slowly improving one’s business and life, buying a large quantity of coffee represents a desire to attempt to repeatedly trick one’s hormonal system into creating a sense of urgency to get the job done quickly — and at all cost.

Having been self-employed for over a year now, I find myself becoming an increasingly fervent advocate for “slow and steady wins the race.”

Although it goes against Tim Ferris’s edits in The Four Hour Workweek — as well as much of the notion of working smarter rather than harder — I find myself most content and productive when working something in the region of 50-60 hour, 6 day weeks.

Figuring out sales, marketing, web hosting, and attempting to simultaneously execute deliverables on time all takes time. Working continuously smarter is a given but — for me — so is working hard.

Yet attempting to operate at breakneck speed for this period, or (as I have been doing all too often recently) repeatedly pulling all-nighters is a fast track to burnout.

Which is why I find that the kaizen philosophy provides an eloquent interface between these two ideas which echo perfectly Japan’s work culture, which emphasizes efficiency but is also famous for its long office hours.

While one must work hard to be productive, if one also strives to work continuously better the benefits will accrue to be substantial over the dint of time.

My typical standard operating procedure (SOP) for attempting to learn a new subject goes something like this:

  • Make a private YouTube playlist with tutorials
  • Buy some e-books or books on the subject
  • Join Facebook and/or LinkedIn groups and/or real-life groups to find a community to improve with (this is really important!)

With that in mind, I have ordered One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, joined some Facebook groups, and readied my YouTube playlist.

I’ve also started a private blog in which I plan to post a daily retrospective outlining the gradual improvements I have identified for myself to implement — both in the professional and personal domains.

Perhaps I can pen some entries suitable for public reading on this blog too.

Now, if only we had a television in our new apartment to watch them on! Time for today’s apartment kaizen, then!