Yesterday I had a fun day out at a Legal Aid Seminar for costs lawyers over the hill in Manchester at the Hilton Hotel. I doubt if the ins and outs of Legal Aid and its future is everyone’s cup of tea but I did actually enjoy it and we had a delicious lunch provided. We also had a plentiful supply of Danish pastries, macaroons and the famous Hilton chocolate chip cookies served just out of the oven. I am definitely going to make some.
Just click on the picture to link through to Amandeline who has the recipe for them on her blog or Google Double Tree Cookie and you will find plenty of references for their ‘not so secret’, secret recipe!
On the train going the uncommunicative commuters had their heads buried in their phones, tablets and notepads with headphones on – so I sat back and enjoyed some precious thinking time.
In my quest to simplify my life one of my goals is to simplify the housework. I do enjoy keeping house, there is nothing better for me than a good spring clean you can’t beat the distinctive smell of towels blown dry by the wind outside or a freshly washed floor or polished wood – but I do want to streamline the process to speed up the time it takes me to make the house presentable and of course a place of joy to live in.
As I have written about here Lean is a concept I am following to simplify my life and I the seven wastes in particular provide me with plenty of food for thought – the waste of waiting being one of them.
For instance – I often have a time lag between washing and ironing the clothes and the putting away – so our house constantly resembles a Chinese laundry (am I allowed to say that these days?). When I can get them outside on the line to dry it is great but then I end up with a huge pile waiting for ironing. If I don’t get them outside to dry I end up with a huge pile of wet washing drying on the clothes horse and the end process of getting them put away ready to use again is delayed.
Another unproductive area of waiting is our bad habit of sometimes leaving the dirty dishes after we have eaten our evening meal – so the dishes are waiting far too long to be washed and put away and we are doing them when we are tired and should be relaxing.
And the worst of the waiting – we constantly buy things and then do not get to use them so they end up waiting somewhere – instances of this are all over the house from those little flossing brushes I bought to try ages ago to the Ikea wardrobe parts still packed in boxes and now waiting in the living room to be moved upstairs and assembled.
I can identify very strongly with the waiting time in this household and the time lag between production steps – I only ever seem to be able to do half a job and then don’t get to finish it until my next day off.
So I am on a mission to get some of the stuff off the waiting list and reduce the waiting time during production.
So for starters I am going to tackle the washing and put in a load every other day and iron it before bedtime so there is no pile building up over the week waiting to be tackled at the weekend, then the dishes and then make a start on the ‘stuff‘ – the unfinished projects – there is one good thing it will still be there waiting for me if I don’t find the time to deal with it!
How do you tackle your unproductive waiting times?
where the journey takes me 
I can totally relate to your ‘waiting times’. I suffer from the same condition myself, particularly the ironing and things bought waiting around to be put into use. Good luck cutting the waiting times in your house.
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I think the things bought and waiting are far worse in some ways than the ironing pile – makes me feel guilty for wasting money!
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Wow, thank you so much for this post, I love the lean idea.
Overprocessing is certainly something I would have to think about, I am getting better but I think that would be the thing that prevents me from moving forward. I need to digest this and your previous post on the subject.
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I am introducing lean into my team at work and our production was so much increased we got a bonus so I know it works – I just need to apply it to home now.
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I am never in a rush to do the dishes, either. Sometimes I think it’s good to split a small project over two weekends so there is also time to relax each weekend. For the sake of that, I am willing to overlook the half-done project on the days in between!
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