Have you ever heard the word, Kaizen?

Kaizen means to keep improving. Many Japanese people have Kaizen in mind and thus try to improve themselves and their work. When we apply Kaizen, our work environment and life both become clearer and flow more smoothly, at ease.

1: Check unnecessary items.

If you have something to sell, check your inventory and figure out what’s really selling – and what’s not. Have the courage to discontinue carrying an item which isn’t selling, or just know the intervals of those sales for this item so you don’t carry unnecessary inventory. Order it around the time of need.

You may also be storing things in separate locations, meaning you end up with duplicates. You can avoid unnecessary spending by setting designated storage locations.

2: Check your ergonomics.

Examine the height of your massage table, desk, and chair. Are they comfortable for you to keep working? You may be feeling discomfort but not addressing the issue. Shift your environment so that it flows better, avoiding future injuries.

3: Time management

I want you to check how you spend your time on a daily basis. Instead of using a calendar which only shows days, I recommend checking your real schedule for the next two weeks by using a divided hourly weekly planner, like Google calendar’s weekly settings.

Fill out exactly what you did the hours of every day. After two weeks have passed, check those two weeks to see how you really spent each hour. This doesn’t mean that you need to fill everything in for every hour, just observe and notice your patterns.

I have noticed that people who say they don’t have time tend to have at least a few hours (sometimes several hours) of blank time each day – and they don’t know how they spent it.

Most people are just disorganized with their time, feeling overwhelmed and ending up frozen. Everyone has an equal 24 hours. Some people can utilize this time effectively and others cannot. Let’s find out why.

If you really are overworked, don’t keep pushing yourself! Some people’s lives are filled with more activities than others. Accept that fact. You can look into help in the form of tasks someone else can do for you. This could be cleaning, social media management, babysitting, food delivery to your home instead of running errands… Once you identify it, implement it and your stress will be lessened.

4: Your service menus

You may notice that some menus aren’t popular. Is that because of bad naming? Or maybe the description isn’t enticing, or it’s just not popular. Identify and take necessary actions.

5: Your treatment room.

You may be able to share your treatment room and sub-lease it, if your contract with your landlord allows. If you take certain days off during the week, you may be able to sub-lease and have part of your rent covered by someone else. There are so many Kaizen you can do in business and life. Let’s start evaluating what you can Kaizen today.