I came across a Japanese term ‘Poka Yoke’ which means mistake proofing, designed by Dr Shiego Shingo in 1960’s at Toyota. He believed that it is processes that are flawed, not people. So if Poka-yoke is put in a process, the output is free of defects and mistakes.
Taking cue from Dr Shiego, I wondered if Poka Yoke can be an effective tool in factories on inanimate objects- ‘machines and products’, why cant it be added in our life to make it effective, stress-free and successful particularly when all senses are in our control. I introspected as to what could be my Poka Yoke which will help me to avoid mistakes of my life. It took me four years to adopt but it worked for me.
POKA YOKE 1 -THE POWER HOUR
Every morning I would get up at 5 am sharp and go to wash room, but eventually drag myself back to bed with some lame excuse and keep pressing the snooze button. This continued till I came across ‘The Victory Hour’ by Robin Sharma.
Inspired, I designed my own victory hour of 30 - 20 - 10 minutes . The first 30 was exercise that would start till I sweat and stop, the second 20- listen to one ‘Ted’ talk and the third 10- planning and penning down every activity of that day. It is said any activity done for 21 days becomes a pattern and done for 66 days it becomes a Habit . I forced myself to do it for 66 days and I am now on an auto mode. This poka yoke of my life keeps me away from any physical or mental weaknesses.
POKA YOKE 2- THE ONE THING
The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognise. I started to pen down that ‘one thing’ that would get me closer to my goal- which was training. I dedicated 90 minutes everyday to reading, writing or listening talks without any interruption. For last two years, this poka yoke has assured me at least a step forward towards my destination. I feel more confident and better every passing day.
POKA YOKE 3 : THE FIVE POSITIVE PEOPLE
We do not have control on people with whom we have to work with but we surely have a choice of people with whom we spend our leisure time. To exercise this choice I used a poke yoke called ‘people auditing’. This means searching for those five people who are positive and give me energy . I audit every 15 days and decide the five people I would like to spend my free time. Agreeing with Jim Rohn , we are average of five people who we spend most of our time with , this poka yoke helped me to avoid negative and gloomy people from my life .
POKA YOKE 4: THE EQUAL PARTNERSHIP
Marriage is a union of two minds but I realised there have to be some visible signs to keep the love going. So I started with a very simple poka yoke of ‘wishing each other a good morning and having bed tea together, no matter what.’ The second more critical issue was, ‘How to make your partner a real partner’ which has been affirmed by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. I couldn’t agree more with her, but hailing from a traditional family, it was difficult . A poka yoke that worked for me was - ‘Let us do what one is good at.’ So work was now clearly divided into ‘my-work’ and ‘your-work’ with no confusion, no conflicts and no complaints.
Someone has rightly said,“One error is human, two errors are a warning and 3 errors shout for poka-yoke implementation”. I would urge all my readers to find their poka yoke to make life easier, faster and better.
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