What is the use of a used cup? None, until it is cleaned you cannot reuse it. What’s the use of a soiled shirt? No use, until it is washed and ironed. Both the used cup and the used shirt are not ready for reuse.
If you have a cup but it’s not cleaned, then you have to take extra steps to make it ready for reuse. The soiled shirt also the same. You cannot wear it until it is washed and ironed. Extra work is needed in both cases to bring these items into reusable condition.
If you have a phone but its battery is dead, can you use it? No. Additional steps are required until it can be reused again. You have to charge it first and then switch it on and wait till it load the program.
These additional works required to make things ready to be used sometimes take time, it also requires additional resources, and more concerning, it further delays the work you want to get done by using it. Got what I mean?
You wake up late and are on a hurry to go to work. But you wanted to make a coffee. You searched for the cup and found it was left unwashed. This requires additional time to make the coffee ready.
You finished the coffee and wanted to call your colleague. So you took the phone from the table only to get a shock after finding that it was not charged and the phone is dead. This causes further delay into what you wanted to do. You have a phone, but the phone is not in a condition to make a phone call. In military term, the phone is not ready for deployment, or not in stand-by state.
Everything we use must be in ready to perform condition. It means no additional work should be required for the thing to perform its task.
This is true for something as simple as keeping fuel in the motorcycle. When you urgently need to go to grandma’s house for emergency, it’s not good when you take the motorcycle and find it’s tank empty. In this situation having the motorcycle is no different from not having it.
I see staplers without staples left on people’s office tables. You cannot use a stapler without staples. Also printers left without papers or cartridge. If the cartridge is low still, you can still use it. But what in the world you will do with a printer that has no paper? Imagine you are on a hurry and rush to print something from that printer?
Here is an exercise, go and check all the areas of your surrounding and see if everything is ready to perform its function. Is the water bottle contain enough water? The phone has charged? Shoes clean? Clothes cleaned? If not, keep it in ready for deployment state.
Revisions:
Original 02-05-2022
Proof read 1, 2