The Science of Process Flowing and Data to Dramatically Improve your Health

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“Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.”
Winston S. Churchill

Imagine if you mapped out your lifestyle? What would you find?

A recent Public Health survey in England found that 80% of people aged 40-60 are overweight, hardly exercise, or drink too much. All this can lead to type 2 diabetes, dementia and many other diseases, not to mention just feeling run down, anxious, stressed, and constantly tired.

Let me appeal to your business sense and let us use data analytics and process mapping to evaluate how healthy your lifestyle is!  It’s also important to include time constraints in order to understand your life’s priorities.

We tend to forget that your health is the most important aspect of your life as we allow instant gratification as short term fixes.  Let’s break down how we can find the constraints, bottlenecks, and lack of governance in our lifestyle.

Your personal Data Analytics are your KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators). Data analyticsmeans measuring your weight, getting annual blood tests and using that data to monitor and improve your health and lifestyle. Blood tests are like measuring wear and tear on an engine and provides critical data on your health condition. Your key KPI’s should be:

  • Your weight.
  • Your BMI (Body Mass index). The gauge of body fat. There are some inexpensive scales to measure both weight and BMI on amazon.
  • Fasting glucose test for tracking type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes means your blood has a higher sugar level and this can cause problems with your heart, kidneys, eyes, and nerves amongst other things.
  • HDL (good) cholesterol and LDL (bad) cholesterol. Cholesterol levels affects your heart and cardiovascular disease continues to be the biggest killer in the western world.

Let’s map your Lifestyle. In business,my tool of choice for mapping processes is Microsoft Visio. Visio contains inputs, outputs, decision points, reports and tasks. That’s all we need. Let’s start mapping! First comes the inputs. Inputs I would include are work, family, fun and all the major activities that make up your day.

Your decisions in your flow chart are probably the most important activities of all. What do you decide first thing in the morning?  Do you stretch, exercise or meditate?  Do you express gratitude in a journal? Or do you check emails and rush through the door? What do you do at lunch? What decisions do you make after work? Do you head to the gym, play a sport, or have a drink? These decisions are the most important part of your lifestyle flowchart.

Map out your tasks.  Once decisions are made then it’s time to execute a task. Tasks include exercise, work day, having a drink, checking emails, driving, cooking dinner, eating …etc. I would try to map out your tasks as simply as possible. Don’t over think this.

Map out your Documents/Reports/ Data. I would consider your weight and BMI index as reports to be included in the flow.

Consider time constraints. You have 24 hours in a day. Most probably 8 hours are used for work, perhaps an hour for commuting, 6-7 for sleeping. That leaves about 8 hours for everything else.  It’s really important how you use the 8 hours for “everything else”.  These 8 hours should include healthy habits.

*** IMPORTANT:  If your personal flow chart shows no healthy habits and only bad decisions then you need to take steps to change your life and make your health a priority.***

Hold yourself accountable and follow-up. Being accountable means taking responsibility for your actions.  It’s easy to make excuses.  I’m too busy is a common excuse for not making your health a priority. We understand we are overweight and stressed but we don’t actually DO anything about it. You need to follow up and ask for input from friends, family members or work colleagues to get better.  At work you follow up with co-workers, your team and your boss. So why aren’t you doing the same thing with your health?

Improving your health is a process and by involving other people in the process you are virtually guaranteeing sustainability and successful outcomes.

Let’s recap

Map out your day using a flow chart to identify unhealthy habits.

Pay close attention to your decision points in the process.

Consider you have 24 hours a day to prioritize your time.

Be accountable and stop making excuses. Just do it!

Engage friends, family or co-workers to follow up on your new process.

Terry Vermeylen is the founder of Mylifechanges.com  and Worldclasssupplychain.com and is interested in Information Technology and maintaining a healthy life.

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