Better flow results from design. There is flow in family dynamics, effort and energy, movement and transport. Improve your life flows.
This is the first tutorial in a short series on how to design better.
Better Design Reduces Work
See, these tiny little native bees?
In our area, a native bee hive is fragile because it can get quite cool here. They thrive in warmer climates. So, I need to care for them. I don’t want them to die. It was a very costly exercise to get these little bees. And we really needed bees because our pollination rates had plummeted with the loss of the local honeybees.
Each day I’m observing them and I’m seeing their energy flow. It is surprising that they’re still producing babies through winter. The season is a very mild at the moment. Here they are disposing of the casing of the cocoon of their babies, they take each cocoon out individually and drop it.
What are they up to?
At at number one, they’re bringing the casing out of the hive. At number two, they’re dropping it. And then the poor little bees are having to lift it up over a ledge to dispose of the little casings at number three. There you can see where they’re dropping it off.
I soon realized I had a mistake in my design. it was costing the bees extra energy because they’re having to perform an extra lift to get the casing over the ledge. In my set up, I had repurposed an old wooden sign. I didn’t understand what they really needed.
So since I observed them, I’ve done a very cheap modification by placing a scrap of wood as a new front porch.
Now you can see how well this works. But I’m surprised at their dedication to the task. They hold on to the casing and throw themselves down with it. Sometimes they even get turned upside down and land with the casing on top of them. Each individual bee transports a casing to the edge and drops it off into the garden.
Flow Thinking on a Large Scale
Here is something more.
This looks like an airport, but it’s actually a railway station in China. I’m showing you this for two reasons. It’s huge. And in Australia, you’re not going to find a station this size because our population is sparse and low. But the second reason why I want to show it to you is because our culture is different and so our flow is slower just by the the way we behave when we’re traveling. Flow is regulated by behaviour.
So, this is not the busiest railway station in in China, and it’s probably not the latest one, but I was very impressed about how efficient it is. They can load a train in as quick as 10 minutes. Hundreds of people. So, this is Shanghai’s Hunga Railway Station, and it’s rather large. is 10,000 square m or think of yards. 10,000 square yards. It has 30 tracks, although the 30th track seems to be hidden there. It has a capacity of 10,000 people at any one time. The reason why I like trains is because they feel so safe and liberating. You can get up, walk around, you can work, you can talk to people. Whether they like that or not, I don’t know. With this level of flow management, the train is much faster to load and unload than aeroplane.
Separate Functions Designed for Separate Flow Streams
Below that busy area is a very quiet area where the trains are. And above that busy area are restaurants and shops and plenty of places to rest and chill out. You are not allowed to just go to the platform and wait for your train. You need to queue. And the queueing is part of a pressure system. It’s part of getting that high efficient loading. So you queue and then you go to a gate. At your gate and you have your ticket checked. If you are non-conforming, you’ve got the wrong gate, your ticket is damaged or wrong in any way or you also need to supply a passport as we did, you get moved to the side.
So if need be, you are redirected nearby and then you are dealt with with a second filter or a second person. The gate acts as a filter and a valve. It stops people from going directly to the trains. The gate allows the build-up of pressure. There is a ‘relief valve’ at the side for those people like myself who did not comply because we also needed to show the passport. But then also then we can be woven back into the stream.
Your life, your design
In the end, the design and the control mechanisms are what create effective flow. I’d like to invite you to consider what the flows are in your life or your latest projects. They could be the social flows, nutrient, financial, water, wind or energy. And the quest is to identify and describe the flow. Ask yourself ‘what are useful or harmful aspects of the flow?’. And then consider how you might measure, preserve, enhance, redirect, or filter the flows. See you next time.
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