Lean life style - removing clutter

I have been caught by the "lean" bug couple of years back and I am getting in deeper and deeper into it on all walks of life. I was introduced to lean in an agile software development seminar conducted by the company I worked for at the time. Though it sounded very logical, I understood the principles only after I read Tom and Mary Poppendiek's book on lean software development. And as usual there are some fantastic blogs(shmula.com, lean.org) which enriched my lean knowledge.

Now I want to evangelize lean software development, want to keep myself lean(which I am except for a slight fat around the tummy which I am after) and fit and also I want to apply the principles of lean at home as well.

At home, however, many of the things I was doing was not really lean. Clutter was my companion at home and also at work and I was uncomfortable if the desk was clean or I can't find all my books on the table. But there was a bit of logic to its madness, which was making things visible. I would have loved a google search thing on my cell phone that told me where I can find my stuff. I used to pride myself that it didn't really matter because I can find stuff wherever it is. In fact I was upset with my sister when she came home and cleaned up my clutter and I couldn't locate my cycle pump which was actually loaned to a friend of mine:)

So here is what I am planning to do to avoid clutter, which is a challenging task for me, but with the awareness of lean principles I may be able to motivate myself to do these things. Knowing the basic principles behind some action helps one make better decisions and spurs you to act.

• Process things quickly and dump unwanted things. I created a ToBeFollowedUp folder in for my email and kept things that need attention, but can't close. BTW, this was tried earlier as well, but I regressed into my old self, but I am determined this time.

• Ruthlessly dump mails(e- and snail) that I don't need immediately, don't keep unnecessary inventory. BTW, I lost an insurance policy and another document earlier when I tried doing this. I should have moved important stuff elsewhere.

• I installed a white board in our living room so that important things are visible. There is a todo list and our health statistics on the board. Wish I had some device that could read my brain and gave me this information without the manual information.

• Clean up used dishes, close wardrobes and chests after use(this should be automated). I use things and leave it as it is, only to revisit when I wanted later. Saving effort(or being lazy) to create clutter.

• One thing at a time: I keep switching between topics quickly, doesn't get to finish anything. White board helps here.

But the basic principle is removing inventory or incomplete work. But it is also not hiding the clutter elsewhere. It is also about designing your environment to avoid the pitfalls and not decreasing visibility. Need to make quick decisions, remove inventory or stop the loom to fix the problem - I took a quick one recently, left my job in a year, I took 13+ years to do that earlier:) Needless to say, there are some great blogs out there that helped a lot, though the principles are known to you, it kind of reinforces and the experiences shared helps drive some points hard.