When we think about limiting work in process (WIP), we have to realize that there are many types of work. Simply limiting work is not enough; we must know what we are limiting. We have to see what we’re really completing.

A real danger is that we tend to limit our WIP and then say, “What’s the most important task to pull next?” without understanding the weights of types of tasks. We have tasks that might:
• Make us money
• Satisfy someone else’s needs
• Teach us something
• Provide us pleasure or an opportunity to relax
• Gain us political favor or help us avoid political disfavor
• Satisfy bureaucratic requirements

Depending on the situation, we’ll pick one of these over another. However, I often see people favoring office demands over personal growth, emergencies over kaizen, and politics over family. This behavior creates new personal emergencies. If you ignore your spouse and your kids long enough, that action has repercussions—the best of which would be that they feel ignored. The worst can be much worse.

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