Flexible or Wasteful?

One of the things I love about being a college professor is the flexibility I have in performing my work.  I also find that flexibility can be problematic.

In the principles of lean operation, one source of waste is unnecessary transportation.  Well, because I have so much flexibility, I seem to move things from one work place to the next -- and then back again.  My campus office is great, but it can be hard to concentrate there, so I reserve my writing projects for my study at home.  Sometimes it is hard to get motivated to work at home (e.g.,  I really need to clean out the pantry), so I take my laptop and go to the library or Barnes and Noble.  In any given week, I may be working from half a dozen computers in more than fifteen locations.  Clearly, I need to simplify things.

My first step has been to move as much as I can to the proverbial cloud.  I do save quite a bit in my email folders on the Exchange(TM) server, but have to purge those every few months because of space limitations.  The courseware we use at my university is also a good place for me to keep teaching-related materials, although it is cumbersome to organize it well.  In the past few months, I have come to rely extensively on Dropbox (www.dropbox.com).  It has an intuitive interface and makes it easy for me to a) access my files from any computer, and b) share files with colleagues.

Yet I still have paper and books that I seem to tote back and forth.  So in the spirit of a popular lean technique, 5S (sort, straighten/set in order, scrub/shine, systematize, and standardize/sustain), I have decided to impose some structure on my flexibility.  The first step of sorting requires that I identify all of my active projects in one place, so that I may then take step two and set them in order (or more specifically, determine where I will work on them and keep the necessary materials).  It helps me to think of my projects role-by-role.

1. Instructor 
1. Weekend MBA - work on campus, files in courseware
2. Flexible MBA -- work on campus, files in courseware
3. Professional MBA -- work from home (teach off-site), files in courseware
4. Next semester preparation -- work on campus, files in courseware
5. Advisement -- work on campus, files in campus office and mainframe
2. Scholar
1. Textbook supplements -- work on campus (supports MBA classes), files in Dropbox
2. Textbook revisions  -- work at home, files in Dropbox
3. Peer review -- work at home, files in email
4. Business novel -- work at home, files on laptop
3. Service
1. Strategic planning committee -- work from home, files in Dropbox
2. House of Delegates -- work on campus, files in email
3. Rotary -- work from home, files in email (communications) or Dropbox
4. Habitat Board -- work from home, files in email (communications)  and Dropbox

My other roles, in my personal life, I generally keep at home.  Again, though, the family computer and some home files are on the first floor; my study and other files are on the second floor.  I seem to be constantly staging things to go up/down.  I am in the process of moving all of the home management "stuff" downstairs, so that my study is just for professional activities.

Once everything is in place, I will scrub/shine my work with good file organization and labeling.  Then I will be systematic about working and keeping things where they belong.  If I can be successful and do this throughout the summer, I just might be able to sustain it during the regular school year.

Productivity is a two sided coin.  One side is flexibility, the other side is efficiency.  It is time for me to flip the coin.

Reflections from my Hiatus

It has been a long time since my fingers last visited this blog.  Ironic, really, because just before I went on a hiatus I blogged about how you have to be disciplined and "make" time.

Well, I have been making time for a lot of things.  Probably too many things.  But not blogging.

My writing energy has been devoted to a couple of other projects.  This summer, I'll be using a new textbook that a colleague and I wrote and edited, for our MBA strategy/capstone classes.  I developed a paper with another colleague about measurement systems for social ventures; it won a "distinguished" research award and is forthcoming in the Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal.  My favorite, though, is an article I wrote to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Fredrick W.Taylor's Scientific Management. The call for papers from the Journal of Management asked whether his work was still relevant in today's businesses.  You betcha!

A key insight of Taylor's was that overloading workers made them less productive.  Well, that's certainly still true today, although the overload tends to be mental rather than physical.  My paper specifically addressed the issue of information overload, why it is so detrimental, and how scientific management and lean manufacturing principles could alleviate the problem.

All this is to say that I have realized I need to take a dose of my own medicine.  I am overloaded.  And very, very tired.   So the stories I will be writing this summer will be reflections about applying scientific management and lean principles to my personal and professional lives.  Comments and suggestions are welcomed!