Continous Improvement: Getting better everyday

Posted on November 1, 2021 by memoriesandsuch

Coming from the manufacturing sector, a continual improvement process, also often called a continuous improvement process or CIP or CI, is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek incremental improvement over time or breakthrough improvement all at once. Some successful implementations use the Japanese approach known as Kaizen where kai means change and zen which stands for good is improvement. Kaizen the Sino-Japanese word for improvement, is a concept referring to business activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. By improving standardised programmes and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste and redundancies. Kaizen was first practiced in Japanese businesses after World War II, influenced in part by American business and quality-management teachers, and most notably as part of The Toyota Way. It has since spread throughout the world and has been applied to environments outside business and productivity.

So how can this be applied to our daily lives? How can we use Continous Improvement to improve ourselves and make us better individuals? Read on.

We live in a world of never-ending disruption and change. By adopting the philosophy of Kaizen, we can become more adaptable, flexible and resilient to deal with the constant demands and disruptions we face in our lives. By adopting continuous improvement, we can live our lives to the fullest by continuously learning, growing and thriving. This philosophy is based on the concept that instead of making big changes at once, the continuous improvement approach focuses on making a small improvement over time.

Kaizen is often referred to as the strategy for 1% gains. It is these 1% gains that athletes focus on to improve their performance. The 1% gains are incremental and if one keeps building on the 1% gains the rewards are phenomenal. Continuous improvement is perpetual and so to maintain gains and improvement, one needs to work on them continuously. Continuous improvement is perpetual and so to maintain gains and improvement; you need to work on them continuously.

An easy example is the new year resolution we make every year. How many of these do we actually fulfil and maintain all through the year? At some point, we slip up and then many of the resolutions fall by the wayside. But there is that small group of people, dedicated and committed, who are able to maintain and fulfil all their goals for the year. However, if one commits to continuously improving themselves, then the motivation to achieve the goals set will never die. One will never have to struggle with giving up or giving in because it is hard. The achievements and success in life will be a result of one taking continual incremental steps toward their goals. Continuous improvement is not about reaching the big goals in life but about taking small steps and improving and refining those goals along the way.

To be successful at the adoption of a continuous improvement lifestyle, the first thing to do is to embrace and accept that the journey of self-improvement and growth will never end, it is a lifelong journey of learning. The steps to improve continuously are as follows:

Step 1: Set goals based on the philosophy of 1% incremental achievements. The setting of the goal is the east part, keeping motivated, focused and on track to achieving the goal is the hard part. Continous Improvement provides one with a system or a process that one can you commit to to enable one to achieve any goal they set. 1% does not seem much, but being slightly better today as compared to yesterday will gradually add up and the goal will be achieved in no time. This system of being slightly better each day enables one to avoid feeling like a failure and being subject to self-anger and derision when one gives up.

Step 2: Break down the system into small actions: When one is attempting to be just 1% better each day, then it’s not about random bursts of improvement in fits and bursts. Continuous improvement is a journey of personal growth where one is making long-term steady progress. This approach of self-improvement will give one the sustainable long-term changes they seek to improve their lives and achieve goals.

As an example, if you are trying to lose weight, instead of obsessing with the ideal weight, start by thinking on how you are going to achieve a healthy lifestyle. Create a system which includes diet and exercise and then break that system down into smaller actions or behaviours which you can follow without exerting yourself too much. Like, you could start walking or exercising and everyday or every week, do something slightly more. Commit to these actions on a daily basis until it becomes a habit. Keep going until the goal is reached.

Step 3: Keep track of your 1% success: It is very important that you measure and track your 1% successes. This is a crucial factor about incremental achievement. Evaluating and measuring improvements are important for one’s own motivation and commitment to the journey. If one is not measuring progress, the subconscious brain will kick in and sabotage progress by convincing one that it is all too hard and that they are not making any progress at all. The subconscious brain only believes what one tells it. Unfortunately, we have told our brain a lot of untruthful things over a long period of time about how we are a failure, not motivated and never really achieved anything in life. The subconscious brain, as a result, believes all these facts that we have told it to be true. Measuring and evaluating our 1% successes is key to us retraining our subconscious to believe that Yes – we can achieve our goals and succeed in life.

Continuous Improvement does not focus on making huge gains or big improvements all at once. Instead, it focuses on long-term steady progress. When one follows the philosophy of Continuous Improvement, they won’t radically change their life, but over time with consistent and constant improvement and change, they will find that they are living their life to the fullest – empowered, resilient and thriving.

Poem: I am a Reader

Posted on October 13, 2021 by memoriesandsuch

As you all know I love books. I am an avid reader, though recently I feel I have not been reading as much as I used to and should do. While thinking about something else to write, I thought of books and this poem came unbidden. Maybe this is my subconscious telling me to read more.

I am a Reader

I am a reader, I live in many worlds
An adventure, romance, crime or thriller
I choose the world I want to go to
What will it be today? What would I choose?

I open the book and settle in with a contented sigh
And soon say to this world a goodbye
As I drown myself in a world full of intrigue and suspense
Heroes full of valour and villains with an air of menace

Or shall I indulge in some heady romance?
Where emotions run deep and the characters rave and rant
Or shall I take a trip to the top of the mountains or the deepest ocean?
Sitting in one place, travelling without a care or caution

I am a reader, there’s a constant movie running in my head
And so when I watch a movie, I am always upset
The film on-screen can never match up to the one in my imagination
I am disappointed yet again, go back to my books and let the magic happen

Books are special, books are magical
With books, there’s never a moment that’s not dull
Books help us know ourselves and let us roam
And all this, from the comfort of our home

So pick up a book and bid now adieu
Let the magic of the written word envelop you
And tell yourself that you too are a reader
An adventurer, a detective, a romantic and most importantly, a dreamer!

World Mental Health Day

Posted on October 8, 2021 by memoriesandsuch

Sunday is World Mental Health Day. In the last two years or so, we all have finally woken up to the importance of mental health and its importance in our lives. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act and also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.

Mental and physical health are equally important components of overall health. For example, depression increases the risk for many types of physical health problems, particularly long-lasting conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Similarly, the presence of chronic conditions can increase the risk for mental illness. It’s important to remember that a person’s mental health can change over time, depending on many factors. When the demands placed on a person exceed their resources and coping abilities, their mental health could be impacted.

There is no single cause for mental illness with many factors contributing to the risk for mental illness, including early adverse life experiences, like trauma or a history of abuse, experiences related to other ongoing or chronic medical conditions, biological factors or chemical imbalances in the brain, use of alcohol or drugs or having feelings of loneliness or isolation.

The World Mental Health Day celebrated on 10 October is an international day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy against this social stigma. It was first celebrated in 1992 at the initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health, a global mental health organisation with members and contacts in more than 150 countries. On this day, each October, many awareness programmes bring attention to mental illness and its major effects on peoples’ lives worldwide with some countries having an awareness week as part of the awareness programme.

Up until 1994, the day had no specific theme other than general promoting mental health advocacy and educating the public. In 1994 World Mental Health Day was celebrated with a theme for the first time: “Improving the Quality of Mental Health Services throughout the World”. On World Mental Health Day 2018, the then UK Prime Minister Theresa May appointed UK’s first suicide prevention minister as the government hosted the first-ever global mental health summit.

The theme for the 2021 edition of the World Mental Health Day is “Mental Health in an Unequal World”. This theme was chosen because the world is increasingly polarised, with the very wealthy becoming wealthier, and the number of people living in poverty still far too high. 2020 highlighted inequalities due to race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, and the lack of respect for human rights in many countries, including for people living with mental health conditions. Such inequalities have an impact on people’s mental health.

The theme will highlight that access to mental health services remains unequal, with between 75% to 95% of people with mental disorders in low and middle-income countries unable to access mental health services at all, and access in high-income countries is not much better. Lack of investment in mental health disproportionate to the overall health budget contributes to the mental health treatment gap. Many people with a mental illness do not receive the treatment that they are entitled to and deserve and together with their families and carers continue to experience stigma and discrimination. The gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ grows ever wider and there is continuing unmet need in the care of people with a mental health problem.

Research evidence shows that there is a deficiency in the quality of care provided to people with mental health problems. It can take up to 15 years before medical, social and psychological treatments for mental illness that have been shown to work in good quality research studies are delivered to the patients that need them in everyday practice. The stigma and discrimination experienced by people who experience mental ill-health not only affects that persons physical and mental health, it also affects their educational opportunities, current and future earning and job prospects, and also affects their families and loved ones. This inequality needs to be addressed so that people with mental health issues are fully integrated into all aspects of life. Research has shown that those with physical illness also often experience psychological distress and mental health difficulties. As an example, one can take visual impairment. Over 2.2 billion people have visual impairment worldwide, and the majority also experience anxiety and/ or depression and this is worsened for visually impaired people who experience adverse social and economic circumstances.

The COVID 19 pandemic has further highlighted the effects of inequality on health outcomes and no nation, however rich, has been fully prepared for this. The pandemic has and will continue to affect people, of all ages, in many ways: through infection and illness, sometimes resulting in death bringing bereavement to surviving family members; through the economic impact, with job losses and continued job insecurity; and with the physical distancing that can lead to social isolation.

So if you or someone you know have issues relating to mental health, please reach out to an expert. If that is not possible, at least talk to someone sympathetic to you and your condition. If there are hotlines or numbers where you can speak with someone, anonymously, please do so and if possible, reach out to a medical expert, even if it is your general physician or family doctor who can point you in the right direction in terms of treatment and counselling. I have always advocated meditation, so try and incorporate some meditation into your daily routine, even if it is as little as five to ten minutes a day, it helps!

World Coffee Day

Posted on October 1, 2021 by memoriesandsuch

I love coffee as it is evident from my posts and poem on this wonderful drink. And when I heard today was World Coffee Day, I had to write a post.

The International Coffee Day is a celebration of the coffee sector’s diversity, quality and passion as well as an opportunity for coffee lovers to share their love of the beverage and support the millions of farmers whose livelihoods depend on the aromatic crop. The day has been used as an an occasion to promote and celebrate coffee as a beverage, with events occurring across the world. Many countries around the world celebrate their own national coffee days at various dates throughout the year. In March 2014, the member states of the International Coffee Organisation agreed to organise International Coffee Day on 1 October to create a single day of celebration for coffee lovers around the world and the first celebration was celebrated in 2015 in Milan as part of the Expo 2015. The day is also used to promote fair trade coffee and to raise awareness for the plight of the coffee growers with many businesses offering free or discounted cups of coffee.

According to one legend, coffee was discovered by the ancestors of today’s Oromo people in a region of Kaffa in Ethiopia who recognised the energizing effect of the coffee plant. However, no direct evidence that has been found earlier than the 15^th century indicating who among the African populations used it as a stimulant, or where coffee was first cultivated. Another legend attributes the discovery of coffee to a Sheikh Omar. According to an old chronicle preserved in the Abd-Al-Kadir manuscript. Omar, who was known for his ability to cure the sick through prayer, was once exiled from Mocha in Yemen to a desert cave near Ousab in modern-day Wusab. Starving, Omar chewed berries from nearby shrubbery but found them to be too bitter. He tried roasting the seeds to improve the flavor, but they became hard. He then tried boiling them to soften the seed, which resulted in a fragrant brown liquid. Upon drinking the liquid Omar was revitalized and sustained for days. It was in Arabia that coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed, in a similar way to how it is prepared now and used used by Sufi mystics to stay awake. Shortly after, coffee became well known in Egypt, Persia, and Turkey as the wine of Araby and coffee houses started to open as the schools of the wise. Coffee farming on a large scale started in southern India and in 1560 coffee made its way through Europe and quickly became popular, until Pope Clement VIII decided that the drink must be satanic though under inspection, he gave in and baptised the drink and declared it a Christian drink. By the 1600s coffee houses sprung up all over Europe and the beans found themselves in America.

And today, this bean makes a daily journey from plantations to breakfast mugs across the world. Us humans have been preparing coffee for many presentations as drinks, candies, medicine, and some ancient civilizations even used it as currency! Coffee can energize you, warm you up, refresh you, keep you awake, and even catch you up with your loved ones.

The theme of International Coffee Day 2021 highlights the mistreatment of coffee farmers, the danger they are facing for their living and the ultimate need to take collective actions. The money that coffee farmers are compensated for the beans they create is at an all-time low. The modern-day coffee farmers aren’t earning enough to supply themselves and fulfill the needs of their families and may need to switch away from making coffee altogether- putting the production of this beverage at risk. Today there is a worldwide oversupply of coffee which is pushing down the market price. At the same time the expense of coffee-production has increased which means farmers do not make enough income to survive. Though we are paying more for a cup of coffee, farmers are compensated just around USD 0.01 or one penny for a cup of coffee.

Caffeine is a stimulant that increases activity in the central nervous system. It can increase energy levels and alertness, plus it improves mental performance. According to a study in Harvard, coffee drinkers tend to live longer, plus they have a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. Coffee is the second largest traded commodity right after crude oil, and the most consumed beverage, after water. Every society has its own coffee tradition.

Grab a cup of your favourite coffee and celebrate this wonderful and addictive drink!

The Elixer of Life: My Water Stories

Posted on September 29, 2021 by memoriesandsuch

Water is essential for human beings to survive. Water carries nutrients to all cells in our body and oxygen to our brain. allows the body to absorb and assimilate minerals, vitamins, amino acids, glucose, and other substances, flushes out toxins and waste and helps to regulate body temperature. As a general rule of thumb, a human being can survive without water for roughly 72 hours or three days. And many experts have predicted that the next major world crises will be over water and suggest that growing water scarcity will drive violent conflict as access to water dries up for certain communities.

So with all the importance of water, it is certianly an essential part of our lives. In many parts of the world, water can be hard or soft and most water that is piped is usually soft water, which is treated and only has chorine and sodium. I am super finicky about the taste of water and probably because of the water I am used to, both while growing up in Mumbai and now in Singapore, which is treated chrolinated water, I can’t drink or find it hard to drink any other type of water. So here are some water stories from my life.

A representation of the water cooler we used to carry. *Source*

When we were younger, we used to travel by train during our summer holidays to visit our grandparents, first only to Bengaluru and then to Chennai first and then to Bengaluru. This is way before bottled water flooded the Indian market and on a train travel, the only water you had was either the water you carried with yourself in large cans or coolers or what you were able to refill in stations enroute. So we would carry as much water as we could from home in large five or 10 litre cans and this was common with pretty much everyone doing the same. This water would finish up roughly about halfway into the journey and we would have to fill it up from one of the stations, usually in Andhra Pradesh. The water would usually be hard and have a brackish taste to it and I would stop drinking water. If I was very thirsty, I would badger my mother to buy me a drink or something else to quench my thirst and if nothing was available, then a sip or two would all that I could stomach. Luckily the period of low to no water would not be too long and we would reach Bengaluru soon and as soon as we reached home, I would gulp water from the largest glass available.

In fact in our home in Bengaluru or Bangalore as it used to be called then, we had two sources of water – one from the well in the house which was slightly hard and the second which was piped in by the city from the Kaveri. I always preferred the Kaveri water and would always tell my grandmother to keep that water for drinking. This water would come in once every other day and when it came in, it would be a process to ensure it was pumped up to the holding tanks so it could be used for cooking eating and drinking while the well water was used for other needs. In fact, on our most recent trip to Bengaluru, my aunt’s house also had some kind of semi-hard water and I just could not bring myself to drink it. This trip was a very short one and we spent a fair amount of time outside visiting family in the city, so I didn’t have to drink it a lot, but the relief I felt when coming back to Bombay and drinking normal water was so immense that everyone who saw me rush to the kitchen to drink water as soon as we reached home had a hearty laugh at my expense.

My maternal grandparents house in Chennai was another matter and there was no source of any soft water. So holidays there used to be a torture for me because there was no alternative source of water I could use. I soon learnt that if the water was ice cold, the taste could be masked and I could drink it, so that’s exactly what I did. Now, I am someone who normally does not drink cold water, but when in Chennai, I would ensure that there was sufficient cold water available so I could use that cold water for drinking and for even brushing my teeth! Our trip to Chennai used to be for a week, after which we would travel to Bangalore for the rest of the holiday, so it was not too bad.

Another story, similar to the above comes from the time when I was around 15. We were on a school trip to the beach town of Bordi which lies almost at the border between the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The whole class X cohort was on the trip, and was a combined Girl Guides and Social Services service trip. In Bordi the water was so bad that pretty much none of us drank the water. And this was the late eightees, so we didn’t have much in terms of pocket money and would restrict ourselves to one bottle of a soft drink a day which we would empty into our water bottles. Girls with a larger amount of pocket money would have purchased more than one and all of us were so glad to be back in Bombay where we could drink water to our heart’s content. This three day trip has been in my memories for more than three decades now because I can still remember the feeling of thirst and now being able to drink water because it was so bad. Like what I used to do in Chennai, when the thirst got too much to bear, we would drink a couple of sips of the hard water and then stop.

So these were my water stories. Water is the true elixir of life, with over 71% of our planet and up to 60% of our bodies made up of water. Without water, life will cease to exist and for this reason, we must learn to preserve it for the future generations.

Memories and Such

Memories of a very ordinary life

Tag Archives: Writing