Donna Sherriff is a New Zealand based improvement and operations management specialist. Seeing a need for simple, no fuss, improvement advice she started The Lean Minimalist blog in 2017. Donna writes articles offering advice and tips for rapid and sustainable business improvement based on over 15 years in Senior Management roles. She also writes about her own personal improvement journey, minimalism, and her life long struggle against the tyranny of cookies.
In June 2019 Donna published an essay collection of her lean blog posts titled 'Start Today with Lean'
Change often comes with discomfort, even change for the better. Our minds are comfortable with the status quo and reluctant to forge ahead into known obstacles and discomfort. If we focus on WHY we want to change and fix our gaze to the horizon where our ambitions hover, we can see that discomfort is merely a necessary part of following the path to true north.
We’ve all seen beautiful images of minimalist interiors; white, aesthetically stark, peaceful and beautiful are all words that might come to mind and are examples of what many think is the minimalist ideal. Often these ideals are architectural marvels of design, outside the wildest dreams and reach of the average homeowner. However, minimalist living is more than an aesthetic, it's a mindset. While some minimalists do pursue a simple, clean, zen look in their homes, many do not. Painting all your walls white is not a free ticket to a minimalist lifestyle. My house is full of kids, pets and general chaos, yet we would happily say that we are pursuing minimalism as a family lifestyle.
No one’s going to buy an improvement program just because a version of it works for someone else. Here lies the misconception. If someone has to sell you an improvement program, you’re probably not ready for it.
We can quickly find ourselves slipping from a position of motivation when the going gets rough. Like many others I’m sure, I find inspiration in reading just one more blog or researching just one more cutting edge idea. Unfortunately, putting awesome information into my brain does not directly result in putting one foot in front of the other when it comes to getting off the couch and getting active.
In a post I wrote earlier this year, I talked about the key pitfalls of visual display boards and some tips for avoiding them. I briefly mentioned what I believe […]
Do you ever feel that you aren’t as minimalist as you could be? Have you had moments of guilt because you bought that extra throw pillow just for the amazing colour and texture, not because you really need a new throw pillow. For shame! Just kidding. The minimalist journey is a long one and often filled with times of slow progress and setbacks just like any other change.
One of the key pitfalls that companies fall into as they embark on a lean transformation is failing to establish a clear vision of what lean will look like when implemented in their business.
As I have pursued my weight loss journey I have assessed the quantity and quality of the food I eat and have realised that for years I have been over consuming. I did not stop and consider how much was right for me, I just assumed that whatever was in front of me was the right amount. I didn’t accept that I would need to make radical changes to clear the excess from my life.
My children are naturally attracted to leaving their toys, books, cups and pretty much everything on any surface or shelf in the house that’s available. The solution we accidentally stumbled across, apart from encouraging them to be less messy in the long term, was the effect of reducing unnecessary surfaces from the house.
What I didn’t expect was that I would suddenly see how I could use these same techniques to gain focus and improve the implementation of my personal growth strategic plan and figure out how to take my goals and turn them into tangible actions and ultimately results.
By setting a perfect standard we can sometimes make the standard impossible to realise. It's much better to set a realistic standard that requires some improvement to achieve but doesn't necessarily ask for perfection all at once.
As I watch our team members explain how they or their team personally changed their own work processes for the better, I am reminded both of how far the culture has come in nearly three years and of the truth that lean culture grows out of the empowerment and commitment of people.
In a previous post I talked about my family’s intention to spend more time in nature, living off the grid. Since then, we’ve spent a lot of time at our small piece of paradise and I’ve observed a number of developments in my two daughters since they’ve had ‘more of less.'
The process involved in losing furniture weight is actually pretty simple and comes about through a few easy steps:
I think the answer lies in a more minimalist and mindful approach to food like the monks in the Dalai Lama's Cat. If I begin to consider food as something that should fit in with my values and beliefs, my mindset starts to change.
If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that I’ve struggled a bit with motivation this year and have been slowly working to overcome this. Today I came across what […]
As the days passed I started to notice a pattern of the things I was using regularly in the house; bathroom, bed, dining table, couch, kettle, a plate, a few cups and so on. This led of course to realising all the things one person doesn’t use when living alone. The expression, ‘rattling around’ suddenly became real to me. I was ‘rattling around’ our downsized house
