In his book Getting things done, David Allen describes a system which helps to achieve a life with ´mind like water´, which is the secret of productivity. When something is thrown into a glass of water, the water wrinkles, but in the end, the water finds its peace back. This is how our mind should react as well. Whenever our thoughts are triggered by an external event and starts wrinkling, it should have time to find back the balance.
In today’s worlds however, people are occupied more and more with everything that they have or want to do, which keeps their mind wrinkled continuously.  These people do not have a mind like water.
In this book, Allen describes a system which helps people getting back their mind like water. His system is based on two principles: defining the next executable action for every theme and log your actions in a system which can be trusted. The system itself contains 5 steps: collecting, processing, organizing, reviewing and doing.

In Nonviolent communication, Marshall Rosenberg describes a way of communicating with empathy and focus on personal needs, and without judgement. Nonviolent means to bring out the best in yourself by letting the way you communicate be led by love, respect, understanding, appreciation, compassion and care, instead of letting it be led by egocentrics, greed, prejudices and aggression. 
This article describes: the four elements of nonviolent communication, the importance of perceiving without judging, the difference between feelings and interpretations, and how to take matters into your own hand by thinking in terms of choice rather than must.

Lean is a culture, a way of thinking, and includes principles and tool that can be applied everywhere: at home, in production and also in the office. The goal of 5S is to prevent wastes, which leaves the employees more time to spend on value adding activities, and to visualize abnormalities, to visualize problems.
In the office environment, 5S can improve both the flow of paper as well as the flow information. How do papers flow between and through offices? How long does the paper (and the colleague who has to work on it after you) wait before it is worked on? And how long does an employee have to look for the right person? In my book Lean Transformations, I describe 8 topics that can be addressed with 5S in the ofice in three catagories: human related safety, physical standards and virtual standards (Panneman, 2017).

A Lean organization is driven by its standards. Standard Operating Procedures are used for production staff, to describe was needs to be done and how to do it. For supporting functions and managers, defining standard work can be more challenging, especially since their work cannot be planned 100%.
What can be captured in the Leader Standard Work or Standard Work for Supporting Functions are activities like daily accountability meetings, Kamishibai & Gemba walks and activities or reports that need to be handed in regularly.The second challenge of Leader standard Work is not to focus only on if the task or job was done, but also on what behavior the person has shown during these activities and meetings.

Creating Mixed model Value Streams, by Kevin J. Duggan, is a sequel of Rother & Shook´s Learning to see (1999). Where Rother and Shook describe the basics of Value Stream Mapping, Duggan describes 10 challenges one might encounter when mapping a more complex value stream in which multiple product families are produced on the same resources (the so called mixed model Value Streams).
These topics include the definition of product families, defining the production interval, balancing operator work cycles and balancing the flow of the product mix. In this article, all 10 challenges described in the book are shortly addressed.

Yamazumi (also known as Balance sheets) is a tool, which’s name could be translated into ´stacking mountain´. It is used to visualize variation in work cycles can be used for moth machine as well as operator cycles.
Within Lean, Variation (Mura) is one of the three enemies of lean. Variation can be found between products in a product family on one workstation, or for instance between workstations in one process. This variation leads to Waste (Muda) in the value stream in terms of waiting times and inventories.
The Yamazumi helps to identify these variations, with the goal of reducing it to increase the flow.

In The Corporate Athlete, Koen Gonissen and Alain Goudsmet describe a holistic approach for maximal personal performance. In this book, the authors present a model in which every person has three batteries: for mental, emotional and Physical resistance. Each of these batteries can be strengthened, improved and need to recharged.
A few basic principles which are connected to this model are: manage your energy, not your time (1), you are as strong as your weakest battery (2) and take good care of yourself to be able to recharge your batteries faster (3).

Kanban is a Japanese term that can be translated into ´Visual signal´ and is used to visualize production and transport signals in a process. Complex computerized systems are no longer necessary when standard parts can automatically be replenished using this simple card system.
This article describes what Kanban is using the 6 golden rules, gives two examples of a Kanban system and how to calculate the number of necessary Kanban’s.

Heijunka is a Japanese Tool, which is used to balance production. When a workstation or production line produces multiple products with different process times, variation (or Mura) in the process emerges. This variation in the amount of work can be reduced when the different products of the mix are balanced in the available time.
This Lean principle goes against a lot of traditional ways of thinking, because the balancing exercise leads to more change overs which are on its own not value adding. This article will explain why it can be useful to choose to balance anyway, and two examples of how to visualize the production interval: the Production Wheel and the Heijunka Box.