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amie Bonini is sitting at my breakfast table,
keeping a log of everything I'm doing
wrong. 6:18, read Bloomberg e-mail. 6:22,
read personal e-mail. 6:33, read article on
bank capital controls. I respond to e-mails
slowly, he says, and should tweet faster.
He wants me to set goals and suggests I start the day by walking
my dog. "What would constitute an amazing dog walk?" Bonini
asks. I1eil him it would involve heading to a creek and seeing
a blue heron. "Blue heron ... bull's-eyer" he jots down.
Bonini runs the part of Toyota that teaches the company's
suppliers in North America how to make and do everything
more efficiently. Toyota volunteers his time
to help nonprofits, too, and for two days it Greeley (left)
has volunteered him to me. In the past year, gets a lecture
my editors have raised the demand for my during the
ride to work
product: words. In my twenties, rather than
increase efficiency, I could add man-hours.
I stayed late, worked weekends. I have children now, and my
wife also works full time. My 3-year-old daughter wanders over
at1:lO a.m. "Daughterl'Bonini writes. "Families are really not
very efficientr" he says.
Every time Bonini describes some part of my life as "waster"
he apologizes. Think of a nut on a bolt in a manufacturing plant,
he says. Threading the nut is waste, as are the first five turns
of the wrench. Only the last quarter-turn of the nut adds value.
The customer doesn't pay you to turn the nut. The customer
pays you to fix the joint. My customer-my editor-only pays me
to hand in completed articles. Everything else I do up to that
point is waste, Bonini says. Then he apologizes.
In the early 195os, Toyota adopted the ideas of a manager
named Taiichi Ohno who abhorred inventory, saylng it hides
inefficiency. He built small boxes at each station on his shop floors;
the stations could not allow inventory to overflow. The artificial This is what Bonini calls a "batch" process. Instead of batching,
hardship was designed to force managers and workers to live Bonini wants me to "flow"-to finish each task as it starts. Flow is
without waste. The approach worked-Toyota's factories cut pro- so important to him that, at home, he washes each dish individu-
duction time and improved output-and was widely embraced. ally as he uses it. The batch inventory of the dishwasher just bugs
Ohno's philosophy, taught at U.S. business schools as "lean him, he says. (It does not bug his wife: Bonini's only allowed to
manufacturingr" is most commonly associated with the concept flow in the kitchen when she's away.) As I open stories, he forces
of lcaizen, or making continuous small improvements that reduce me to either print, close, or tweet out each article as I find it.
the waste of unnecessary motion. Toyota will scratch at tenths On the 7s-minute car-and-train ride to work, Bonini sits beside
of a second to bring down "talct timer" what it takes to complete me and asks questions about my commute. I tell him I decided
a single step in a process. to use that time to learn Spanish, which would be helpful for
There's no perfect way to apply these lessons to a human life. my job. "Great!" he replies. Then I mention that I haven't actu-
"Your day has a lot of moura,which means unevennessj' Bonini ally gotten around to it. He's silent.
says. As soon as he arrives, he starts cleaning out my inventory. Once at work, Bonini starts at my desk by shoveling all the
Normally when I read the news, I'll bookmark around zo tabs paper offit, printout by printout. He forces a decision on each-
of links, intending to read them at some point during the day. throw out or file away. Bonini puts the documents I keep in a

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Get a good start

Make windows of time for
things you want to do
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Make a specific plan
Have prioritized objectives
throughout the day to
Organize your work space
Have only the necessary
things on your desk
Do one thing at a time
Complete tasks one by
one-continuous flow-as
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on a personal level: 1) Walk understand if you're ahead ready to go-supplies, much as possible to LrJ
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the dogfirst thing. 2) Have or behind, e.9., four tweets documents, business cards, avoid disruption. For =
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breakfast with your family. and one story pitch to editor phone cords arranged, example, get in 45 minutes a
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3) Learn something while by 7 a.m.; one Web post by headset properly connected of uninterrupted prep o
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GOWIT]|TllE commuting. 4) Take a brief noon; major progless toward and on its hook- time such as news scanning E
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a
lunch or walk a few minutes feature story (2,500 words) and keep the working or reading, tweeting, :f
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$01ril1{u0ll$tt0tl, outside to decompress. by day's end. environment clean. or e-mail archiving. J
 Bonini has three degrees from
Bonini's Iog Massachusetts Institute"of f""n
of Greeley,s rology
inefficient day

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do mess
?: i:# : llj. ::_ :kl I of browser tabs open. when I
remember
H:t-"i ;'i#l? .i'l:*ls lii:': i to, I open a tab and force a decision-print,
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j:.*frIr:t.j"n"""-h."dserwithin';;;;,fi ffi|:iixiii'i; I have held to my post-it rytt"*. tweet, or crose.
ia"", no ronger lurk in the
focuses
H the mind. back of my mind, but sit in rront
or *". r t to physica'y
At the end of two days of observation, move them around and decide "rE on them
Bonini has a hand- *rr"tner to *orr. or
drawn pie chart of what i've been crumple them up.
doing_wilh *y time. I type ar_
ticles or tweet for 3 perce{ of I've also become rigid about putting
writes, I get tg 2lp.icent. Not -t
a.n If I incrude edits and re- things on my desk
to woriy,.h. ,uyr. rhis is exactry
what he woul^d expect to see iffi.Jy"Ti::.":":jil"r^"f :*::,iJ*u,.Tni,-i"?itesmockery.
proved manufacturing plyq:;ust
upon arriving at an unim- ffiffi1,'il;:'J,il::ff*
S p;r..nt of man-hours : 3t^r'lined tfre banana with tape. tsut like
adding value. whar h6 iails inciae"niar a nail on an otherwise clean shdioor,
work, reading tied mis-
directly to an article, adds .nott JU$T T PERCEI{T placed paper indicates a
..i6'O.r.ent of my day. failure: I,ve either
This leaves 6o percent of my not rnade a decision, or I,m gathering
makes up 12 percent of my waste.
day walted. writing e_mails 0t tttY up a
Bonini asks whether I batch that needs to be flowed.
Another editor
have to spend so much time
editing *y lrlAll.H0lln$ says she much prefers this ..r"* grlndan.,,
I send them. Tarking to my edito-rs *.ssages before At home, too, I'm trying ro
takes up another AIO UAI.UE
g_:I l,.riy.",r,.v a be preased to give chores, rather than pil" up reminders
"..-omplish
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me that time back.) sui the to do
bigg;lirui#;";"ril:". ** them later. I a9t< *f wife if she
become more efficient. I have thinks I,ve
*;X:,:::?::_Ty qrive to fr?go* the ctosest metro station called her aom#;i:?fril:
single most effective impiovement
;';;.ffi;i','jir:il.* and she wants to get off the pho l.Mirri*
than a week after Bonini visiied,
,h" and I had
allyl, she says. Less
would be to work from home. vs fourth child.
---s our
And families are just not rhar
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