The document outlines principles of lean management for personal development, focusing on defining value, eliminating waste, empowering oneself, and continuous improvement. It emphasizes identifying personal values, measuring success, and reducing waiting waste through practical tools like kanban boards and the 5Ds approach. Additionally, it provides insights into common obstacles to productivity and strategies for overcoming them, authored by Jens R. Woinowski, who advocates for applying lean concepts beyond the business context.

3. efine Value
liminate Waste
mpower Yourself
ull Value
Improve Continuously
D
E
E
P
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4. • Define Value
• What are the deeper values hidden behind your more obvious goals?
• Which values are really your own? Which are driven by others?
• Eliminate Waste
• What are you doing or possessing that does not add value for you?
• What can you do to get rid of that waste? How do you measure it?
• Empower Yourself
• When do you feel empowered? How can you boost empowerment?
• How can you avoid situations of (self-)humiliation?
• Pull Value
• How can you reach a steady flow of value?
• Where do you see a impediments to the value flow?
• Improve Continuously
• What have you done lately to improve yourself or your environment?
• Which area of your life has not seen any improvement for too long?

5. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California,94105, USA c s a r bCreated 2013 by Jens R. Woinowski, leanself.org
Based on the Lean Canvas by www.businessmodelgeneration.com
From & for: Created Day Month Year
Status Day Month Year

6. Person
1
Person
2
Is that you?
Strangers Interesting Boring Value Trap

7. Waiting
Inventory
Motion
Rework
Over-
production
Over-
processing
Trans-
portation
Waste of
Intellect
?!?
7+1 Types
of Waste

8. You can, you should,
and if you’re brave
enough to start,
you will.
Stephen King, On Writing

9. Waiting (later) To-Do (soon) In Progress Impediments Done
Limit your WIP
(Work in
Progress)
Pull from left to
right, starting on
the right side
Take care of
impediments
(blockers)
quickly

10. • Measure success
• Did you achieve
the desired
effect?
• Change your plan
if results are
lacking
• Goal: Continuity
• Act out on your
plan
• Use the A6 and
your Kanban
board
• Create an
improvement
plan
• Use an A6 for
planning
Plan Do
CheckAct

11. Mantra: How to eat an elephant? Bite by bite!
Value: Gain more self-respect by tackling all my to-dos in time
Waste: Waiting Obstacles/root causes: Fear of a
long to-do list prevents me from
starting any task on the list
Actions: I use a Kanban Board and
apply the 5Ds (Do, Delay, Delegate,
Delete, Divide) of waiting waste
reduction.
Next step: Immediately after
creating the Kanban board, I work on
the very first entry of the WIP
column, but only for five minutes.
Measurement: Number of items on
Kanban board, checked weekly.
WIP<=3, To-Do <= 10within two
weeks from now
Update: I will review my to-do
behaviour in four weeks from now.
Don’t use A3 if A6 is enough, don’t
use A6 if you can put it on a tiny
sticky note

12. Problem
Statement
Why? Answer #1 Why? Answer #2 Why? Answer #5Why?...
Problem
Statement
Tools PeopleProcesses
Resources
Organi-
zation
Environ-
ment

13. 0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Effect
Effort
80/20 rule
60/3
90/48
96/80

14. Value
Idealism
• Devoted to a cause
• Highly motivated
• Keeping up the truth
• Deep knowledge
• Result oriented
Opposite Value
Diplomacy
• Respecting people
• Political animal
• Patient
• Overview knowledge
• Process oriented
Exaggerated Value
Fundamentalism
• Narrow-minded
• Over-motivated
• Self-righteous
• Tunnel view
• Impatient
Exaggerated Opposite
Opportunism
• Selfish, using people
• Sycophantic
• Underhanded
• Bluffing
• Unreliable

16. A handy overview that shows you how to use
principles and methods of Lean Management for
self-improvement. This pocket edition is a collection
of the most important and powerful tools from the
Lean Self Blog.
Visit http://leanself.org to learn more.
Subscribe to the monthly newsletter for regular
updates.
efine Value
liminate Waste
mpower Yourself
ull Value
Improve Continuously
D
E
E
P
+
About the Author
Jens R. Woinowski is working as a quality and risk
manager at a major IT company. In his job, he learned
about the power of Lean. At home , he discovered that
you can use it beyond business . He blogs regularly
about the application of Lean to personal matters.
© 2014 Jens R. Woinowski