The other day, I was sharing a bit of a personal story on how I enjoyed Smarties.

For those in the know, these were originally made by Rowntree Macintosh in the UK and are now owned by my friends at Nestle.

They are, to quote the packet, a crisp candy coated shell around a milk chocolate centre and are made in differing colours and packaged up in little boxes or tubes.

So here’s my confession, I always used to open the tube and empty the contents out. Nothing odd there you think?

At this point it goes a bit 5S, as I have just Sorted: by removing the packaging and put them on a plate for hygiene purposes.

I would then, before eating any, sort them into colours, arranging the sequence from highest to lowest.

This is of course a little bit of Straighten or Set in Order.

I then would eat them in reverse order of quantity, from Lowest to highest number, however I would always save the orange Smarties until last.

This is a Standard that I still adhere to today, why? That is obvious, because the orange Smarties taste of orange!

Finally, let’s discuss the final of the 5S’s, Sustain. I still maintain this Smartie ritual today, and although a few people have muttered the words OCD, I prefer to call it just simple 5S thinking

What are you 5S Smartie stories?