Balancing Work and Family-It's Not Easy

An excerpt from my ebook Invest in Yourself

You want to improve your life. Something is motivating you to become a better person or employee. There is power in simply sitting down and putting your thoughts to paper. From this documentation comes the beginning of your plan.

Step One: Create a Current State SIPOC Diagram of Your Life (see example above)
The diagram depicts the current state of your life. Starting with life process (P), list in order of priority: Work, Family, Play (self), and God. The priority should reflect where each stands in your life. Where are you spending your time and thoughts? Your day rises and falls with what occurs in these arenas.

Be honest in the prioritization. If you are taking time to do this, you want to change so make this an honest effort.

The output (O) of this life process is your feelings. Give yourself two and one half minutes to write down (in the output O column) the negative feelings you have and the same amount of time to write down your positive feelings. These are your emotions during the course of a day. Think about this week and things you encountered at work and away from work. When you are done, add up the total amount of feelings and calculate a percent positive and a percent negative. Write the percentages in the third row under output.

Your customers (C) are the recipients of your feelings. They receive them free of charge in their daily interactions with you. They see the good and bad in you. They know you (some better than others) as a person. In general terms, use the 3F3C format: First (you), Friends, Family, Colleagues, Clients, Congregation. First (you) signifies yourself as a customer. To be good to others, we must be good to ourselves. Friends are the people you enjoy being with and need to interact (with) for your well being. Family is your immediate family and extended family. Colleagues are the people you work with. You spend a significant amount of time with them so it is important to treat them as customers. Clients are the workplace; the recipients of your skill and work tasks. They can be internal to your company or external to the company. Congregation is your church. Write the categories in descending order according to the current priority in your life.

Study your life process, output, and customers. What does this self reflection mean to you? Hopefully, this allowed you to organize your thoughts.

Write down the current inputs (I) to your life process. I suggest two sources: Physical condition and thought process. The concept is sound mind and sound body. In the S column, list the suppliers of your physical condition. What suppliers are shaping your thought process? Think of what you are bombarded with every day. A distribution of your time should help with this.

Go to the third row and summarize each section of the SIPOC diagram.

Step Two: Create a Future State SIPOC Diagram of Your Life (see example above)
Becoming lean means systematically eliminating waste from processes to deliver products and services quicker to your customers (always on time) with exceptional quality. A leading tool in lean is a value stream map. In general terms, value stream mapping creates a current picture of a key business process including areas of waste and creates a future state map of the process minus waste. Your life is no different. The current state SIPOC diagram shows where you are now. This should organize your thoughts and help you understand what is coming into and going out of your life. The future state SIPOC diagram is the vision of what your life will be minus waste (sin, etc.). God already knows the answer but you are starting (with this diagram) to learn what his plans are for you.

Change the Priority Order of Your Life Process (P)
Critique the order in your current state diagram. Does the list reflect the correct priority order? If not, put them in descending order (on the future state diagram) from most important to least important. Often, my high school football coach told us to keep priorities in order. His order was God, Football, Family, School, and all Else. This reordering of priority is your first step towards change.

Focus now on the suppliers of your inputs. To improve or change your physical condition and thought process, you must improve or change suppliers. In the supplier column, write a list of suppliers you will allow in your life. The list may contain current suppliers and/or new suppliers.

This activity is done with the belief that God is pleased with your action. He loves the fact you are excited to discover what he has planned for you. What you put on paper does not have to be correct. There is no right or wrong. The significance is you are putting your innermost thoughts to paper. You are opening your heart and mind and documenting both for you and God to see.

God knows the output. All you have to do in the output column is write down what you want the output to be. What do you want in life? Think about this using everything you have done to this point. You are poised to ask God for something. He anxiously awaits the question and is eager to help you. In the form of a question starting with “God, I ask for/that,etc.”, write down what you are asking God to do in your life.

In the customer column, prioritize the list of customers from your current state diagram. Who should be your number one customer?

In the third row, write down actions you want to take to better serve your customers and actions you will take for each supplier.