In industrial engineering it is a very common to observe a system to learn about it and suggest ways to improve it. As an industrial engineer I have spent numerous hours collecting data on machining assembly lines and operator moments on a shop floor. The collection and analysis of data is the heart of any process improvement process. It helps to study the current behavior of a system (a system could be an assembly line, flow of shoppers in a departmental store or your internet searching habits). After all the data has been collected analysts/engineer try and make sense of it. This leads to a baseline formation on which you can base your improvement process. After a certain prescribed time you measure the change due to the improvement and evaluate the progress. It is a long and painstakingly slow process. A major such study is called Time & Motion Study.
It is very similar to our lives. Our lifetime is a series of time and motion. A time is our natural progression from being born through the various stages of our physical life. Time is also a measure of our progression through various stages of our mental development. Motion is the process of our mind and body continuously involved in a change, however imperceptible it may be. Our mind is constantly moving from a thought to another. Our body has millions of cells which grow and die as we continue to age. Our life is about movement as well; we move from our parents' care to our own challenges as we grow professionally as well as physically. We change our schools, friends, jobs and even partners. Even if I decide to standstill, everything surrounding me would change. So change is unavoidable and you cannot beat time. But as human beings it is also our duty to improve ourselves physically as well as mentally. Only through improving ourselves we can grow and achieve our goals whether physical or spiritual.
If life is indeed Time & Motion why not study ourselves, so we can form a baseline for our reference. Actors have been doing this for learning more about human behavior and emotions. They try to develop skills and more importantly courage to visit emotions inside them which anybody else would try to avoid. Similarly we can try to learn about our behavior and reactions to various impulses. Every situation we encounter and the results we achieve we can use as raw data. Every minute we live we are creating huge amount of data which we normally ignore. But if we start observing ourselves and collect data we would soon realize the significance of our lives and significance of things around us. We can use the data to find a meaning of our mental and physical behavior. And we can use it to improve ourselves.
How do we collect such data? There is no trick involved, we always collect data about others. We realize from time about other persons' dislikes, likes, behavior etc. We know our behavior and likes/dislikes. But we ignore the analysis part for most of it. That's why it is so difficult to point out a few of our positives or negatives. But if challenge ourselves to monitor ourself we can improve the process of this system; the us.
It is very similar to our lives. Our lifetime is a series of time and motion. A time is our natural progression from being born through the various stages of our physical life. Time is also a measure of our progression through various stages of our mental development. Motion is the process of our mind and body continuously involved in a change, however imperceptible it may be. Our mind is constantly moving from a thought to another. Our body has millions of cells which grow and die as we continue to age. Our life is about movement as well; we move from our parents' care to our own challenges as we grow professionally as well as physically. We change our schools, friends, jobs and even partners. Even if I decide to standstill, everything surrounding me would change. So change is unavoidable and you cannot beat time. But as human beings it is also our duty to improve ourselves physically as well as mentally. Only through improving ourselves we can grow and achieve our goals whether physical or spiritual.
If life is indeed Time & Motion why not study ourselves, so we can form a baseline for our reference. Actors have been doing this for learning more about human behavior and emotions. They try to develop skills and more importantly courage to visit emotions inside them which anybody else would try to avoid. Similarly we can try to learn about our behavior and reactions to various impulses. Every situation we encounter and the results we achieve we can use as raw data. Every minute we live we are creating huge amount of data which we normally ignore. But if we start observing ourselves and collect data we would soon realize the significance of our lives and significance of things around us. We can use the data to find a meaning of our mental and physical behavior. And we can use it to improve ourselves.
How do we collect such data? There is no trick involved, we always collect data about others. We realize from time about other persons' dislikes, likes, behavior etc. We know our behavior and likes/dislikes. But we ignore the analysis part for most of it. That's why it is so difficult to point out a few of our positives or negatives. But if challenge ourselves to monitor ourself we can improve the process of this system; the us.
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