5 Whys

This is a concept that came up at work recently, and the more we discussed it, the more it piqued my interest. Our team actually agreed to make a conscious effort throughout the course of the week to be able to answer our own questions by introspecting and asking ourselves “why?”

Often applied to more technical problems in search of root causes, the 5 whys is a technique that can be applied to your daily life too!

“Why?” It’s such a simple question but not asked nearly enough. Why are things they way they are? Why do certain tasks need to be done. I have found that by asking myself why a lot more often, I have been able to remove impediments that are unnecessary obstacles in my daily life.

The idea behind the 5 whys is that if you can ask yourself why five times, you will arrive at the real answer (often before even getting to the fifth why). Applying the technique to your own life might look something like this:

The problem: You never seem to have enough time to get through your to-do lists each day.

1. Why? You are constantly running to and from work, school, social, fitness and personal commitments.
2. Why? You have signed up for too many activities and responsibilities.
3. Why? You wanted to better yourself and broaden your horizons, but all too often you also sign up for things to please others.
4. Why? You don’t know how to say no (great post on how to do this here).
5. Why? You haven’t taken a step back to prioritize what is most important to you! That’s the root cause. Prioritize those activities that you really care about, and limit yourself to what you can handle. This may mean putting a dinner with friends before a yoga class or vice versa – its all up to you!

I hope this helps some of you to get to the root causes of any problems you are facing in your daily lives and to weed out the impediments.