All You Need To Know About The Popular Japanese Technique ‘Kaizen’ To Overcome Laziness

With today’s hectic lifestyle and schedules, it is comparatively easy to feel trapped in the cycle of laziness. We all experience those moments when motivation feels elusive and the desire for relaxation overheads us. Japanese culture is an abundant source of effective techniques to lead a healthy and better life. One such technique to beat everyday laziness is ‘Kaizen’ which is a powerful tool rooted in Japanese culture that helps in breaking the chain of languor.

What Is Kaizen?

Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy which thrives on continuous improvements and small incremental changes that lead to significant transformations over time. It is based on cooperation and commitment to achieve transformation. This concept focuses on a wide range of ideas. According to Investopedia, the concept of Kaizen involves making the work environment more efficient and effective by creating a team atmosphere, improving everyday procedures, ensuring employee engagement, and making a job more fulfilling, less tiring, and safer.

How Does Kaizen Work?

Kaizen is all about building a culture where the employees can engage in suggesting and implementing improvements within the organisation. It is a simple process that involves setting goals, reviewing the current status, developing improvement plans, and reporting results.

Five Elements Of Kaizen

Kaizen includes five elements or principles which are; know your customer, let it flow, go to Gemba, empower people, and be transparent. Kaizen 5S refers to a process used in lean manufacturing and includes five steps of improvement. The steps are sort, straighten, sweep, standardise and sustain. An S5 event typically follows each of these steps one day at a time.

How To Use This Technique To Overcome Laziness

The first step to using this technique for overcoming laziness is to recognise and acknowledge the habit. Take enough time to analyse, and reflect on your behaviour, and recognise the patterns and areas of improvement.

The main approach to the Kaizen technique is to set small goals to break the habit. Breaking down large tasks into smaller tasks helps in alleviating feelings of laziness. The ‘one-minute principle’ is also an effective method to overcome procrastination. In this, you need to commit one minute to the task you have been avoiding. We all find beginning a task as the hardest part, therefore this is a great method to get started. After that establishing an effective routine can also help in overcoming laziness. Schedule time for specific tasks such as studying, playing, watching television etc.