Seiri or Sort is the first step which covers the rubbish removal and unnecessary items. This sort concept reminds me of the sorting hat in the movie Harry Porter. In the movie, all new students will be sorted using a magical hat into their own house and thus the hostels. It is a big deal for the teenager to get sorted into the correct house so that they could be together.
In this case, out of all the process in 5S, my personal view this is the most difficult and the most important one. As in Harry Porter movie, the house will be representing them until the rest of their life. Put it in perspective, during my boarding school days, I am “sorted” to a yellow how, and till now those within the house are closely knit.
New Project
Anyway, as in any new project, the oil is thick and the friction is high. Which is why I said it is difficult. I am not saying it is difficult because the process itself, but the inertia needed to start the project itself. Once this process has been started the rest will be much easier, and easier. However, if this process is still pending then nothing will be accomplished.
This first step is really crucial. One of the thing about having an organized life is commitment. Are you willing to commit yourself to better life, a more enjoyable life, a happier life and a much fulfilling life. If you are, then this method will work. If for you happiness is not something important to you, then I would say do something else. Find some other better things to do, 5S may not be for you. The first step is rubbish removal.
I would like you to imagine how it is like to have a more organized and fulfilled life. Imagine all your items are in place and you know where they are. The whole house is standardized into a look that is similar and familiar yet happiness fill your heart. Are you willing to have that feeling? If yes, then let’s go through the journey together.
Rubbish Removal Using Feeling
1st thing that you need to do is to discard all the unnecessary items in your house or location. This could be done individually or as a family or as a team. The main idea here is to remove ALL unnecessary items in your location. For specific tips on how to remove your unnecessary items, there is a set of tips you can follow here. The tips will help you with specifics on how you could identify what is the unnecessary item and why. The key idea for this step is to simply REMOVE all the unnecessary items from your house, through some standard thought process which is what 5S method is proposing. Do not think where you want to put the item at this stage, as it will only delay the process. You want to finish this process of rubbish removal as fast as possible to gain the benefit.
As a summary you can do this step: (FEELING)
- Choose a type of item you want to remove
- Put it all the item in a single location so that you can see them all
- Have a feel about the item – happy keep, good and unhappy sort and put them all in an unhappy location/bin.
- Identify unhappy and damaged items in your home or location.
or
- Go to the location that you want to remove the unnecessary item
- Have a feel about the item – happy keep, good and unhappy sort and put them all in an unhappy location/bin.
- Identify unhappy and damaged items in your home or location.
However, between the two option, I would propose option one since for example, you have clothes in a different location, you may need to do clothes again and again and again since it is in a different location and you can’t really see yourself throwing all your clothes since it may feel and look very small amount. But, if you put all your clothes in a single location, every single one of them and sort them one by one based on the criteria and feel. Then you are much better off doing the rubbish removal until a specific space is achieved. For some who would like to have a more constructive way of identifying the unnecessary item, with specific on how to choose. A list of ways to do that could be seen here.
Rubbish Removal Using Action
2nd, once you have already removed the unnecessary item and moved them into an identified unhappy location or a marked bin or any location you feel is suitable (in company or industry we move all this into a red tag area for next action), THEN it is the time to perform the actual sorting the technical sorting. In this case, you could think about moving it to another location (your kid’s toys should be in their room and not yours), give it up for charity (the more you give, the more you get back), recycle (you could join the evangelist to be a change agent for the environment) or worst throw it out.
As a summary you can do this step: (ACTION)
- Move through the item one by one and think about what you want to do with the items.
- Recycle The Items
- Throw It Away
- Sent It Back To Store (If Allowed)
- Distribute To Other Part Of The House / Organization
- Sell It (If Allowed And Feasible)
- Return To Owner
On top of removing the unnecessary items from your space and area, it is also important to highlight that for us to feel safe, peaceful and happy in the home office, we need to consider another important criterion – reducing the issue of the minor defect is also important when implementing 5S. Now that the rubbish removal are done, let’s some some ideas on this.
The main idea is to sort out and remove unnecessary item from the space you are in. Only have the item that you need, in the frequency that you need and in the quantity that you need for the space that needed them.
SBAH