Use an organizer For someone who is working from home, line between ‘work’ and ‘family’ is blurred. Therefore, it’s important for us to learn how to schedule our work and use an organizer properly. This will help us meet deadlines, set priorities and remember important tasks. You can use a normal scrapbook, a journal, an exercise book, a small notepad (the 555 kind, even), use your Outlook program, use an Excel file, use a Microsoft Word document…whatever works for you! The point is that you need to use it consistently, refer to it, update it and add new tasks to it.

Don’t check your email all time Yes, you need to check your email regularly but when you check your email too often or keep your inbox open all time, you’ll get distracted with new tasks and neglect earlier ones. This way, you will get more and more backlogs and in end, some of older projects will take longer to finish. Check your email often at same time everyday, but not all time.

Don’t work all time Those without discipline will work only when they feel like it and when they don’t, they’ll do something else. This kind of attitude towards work is not advisable. But on other hand, workaholics should also learn how to let work go whenever time comes. If you feel stressed out, maybe that’s because you’ve been working too much because your work is right there in your house. You’ll never get far enough away from your work. So, learn to switch your computer off and let go!! Just go spend some time with neglected spouse and kids.

Conclusion These are just a few of important points about working from home and I have just managed to skim surface of whole issue. I will explore other aspects of working from home in another article.

Fax Kanban is not efficient and not Lean

At ten minutes per fax, someone is spending 3.5 hours per day in administration time. That inefficiency results in less time to utilize more suppliers or improve relationships with existing suppliers.

Furthermore, even if 99% of those faxes are trouble free procurement signals, four faxes per month are going to be problematic and dilute entire rationale for a lean manufacturing operation. Suppliers claim they did not receive fax kanban; suppliers cannot make shipment date requested and expedited shipping fees are incurred, or worse, there will be a stockout which will negatively impact customer service levels.

Datacraft Solutions www.datacraftsolutions.com Sam Bayer e-mail protected from spam bots 919-667-9804

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