I Heart 5S

March 19, 2008

My friend Lyra mentioned to me that today is their cleaning day at work. I love 5S!

Apart from fancying all things and food Japanese, I admire them for coming up with this concept of organizing things and making your space conducive to working.


My workstation at USW

First let's go back a bit to what 5S means:

Seiri (整理): Sorting. Keeping only essential items. Everything else is stored or discarded.

Seiton (整頓): Simplifying. Arranging things in an order so that one can work freely.

Seisō (清掃): Sweeping or shining. This is self-explanatory.

Seiketsu (清潔): Standardizing or systematizing cleanliness.

Shitsuke (躾): Sustaining or maintaining the cleanliness of things.

Given that knowledge, that sense of obsession compulsion has been ingrained in me ever since I was in high school. Even until now in my workstation here in the office, I am always reminded of the belief that "a clean office is a happy office".

In movies and television, good examples of a posh and clean workplace are

Miranda Priestly's office in The Devil Wears Prada,



and the Meade Publications office in Ugly Betty.


Note to self: I should've really really pursued a career in the fashion magazine industry.

Now here's one more very neat and interesting office of a famous person.


This is the office of Martha Stewart in New York.

That's why we call her the maven of good housekeeping!

My Chick Fix

I started reading chick literature last year. If I recall correctly, I was going through novel titles in a bookstore one day and was captivated by the look of a dainty colorful paperback that printed a description of who I also was: a self-confessed shopaholic! Sophie Kinsella has done a wonderful job in delighting lovers of chick literature. I have read most of the offerings in the Shopaholic series, treading the very steps of Becky Bloomwood since Confessions of A Shopaholic, and then Shopaholic Takes Manhattan to Shopaholic & Baby which is my current reading duty. The writer has always been very effective in using her style in this genre. Now I just can't wait to finish reading her latest novel and post a review of sorts.

Another novel I read was Devil Wears Prada written by Lauren Weisberger. Of course, visuals are way better for me. The movie adaptation was very stylish indeed, literally and figuratively. Its characters Meryll Streep and Anne Hathaway excellently played their roles as the devilish boss and her dear assistant, respectively.

I think this is the genre I feel most secure about my writing prowess. Even before chick lit was conceived and propagated in the tradition of Sex and the City, I remember I wrote an article in the Valentine issue of Manila Bulletin about the neanderthal theory of men. I guess this somewhat opened my interest in female-oriented literature.