Skeletons in the closet

By now you are getting back into the swing of things after the glorious break. Your tan is fading, the turkey slumber has worn off and you are slowly getting back to work. You have great plans for this year but don’t know where to start. You have done the three steps to goal setting, write them down, talk about them to others, and recheck them.

But really do you feel bogged down by your work surroundings? What do you need to let go of?

Here are our top tips on starting the year right, thinking strategically and the art of making things happen:

Look at your “someday” piles – Everybody has them, the newspaper clippings of cool restaurants that you want to visit. An old dusty guitar you have hiding in the closet. That brochure outlining a course you want to do. How often have you said “someday I will do this or that?” That day has arrived my friend, kick those skeletons in the closet or else they will continually haunt you. Do it, use it or lose it.

Clean out the virtual clutter – Clean out your email or phone inbox. Do you really need that forwarded joke sent to you from a friend three years ago or that confirmation email about your spa visit in 2015? File it or get rid of it. It will save you lots of time in the future. Start fresh with a clean email slate.

Get rid of the hardware – Do you have an old phone hanging around? That printer with the half-used cartridges sitting in the office cabinet. Your office should not be a museum for the history of fax machines. If you have used it recently (you will have to figure out what recently is!) keep it, if you haven’t, try giving it away to a program that helps disadvantaged schools for example. If it is beyond repair, find a place to get rid of the body. You will be amazed at how streamlined things become.

Celebrate – Once you have cleaned out the dust, debris and dinosaurs from your life, have a cold beer, go buy some Haigh’s Chocolate or surf the trashy stories on the gossip websites. You deserve it! These seem quite simple goals, but are much harder to do than to write down on a computer screen. I say this as I currently looking at an old hard drive that has not been used this decade but has somehow survived moving house three times and is currently propping open a door!

Letting go is hard, but often it is the only way of moving forward.

Happy spring cleaning!

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.

Lisa Twyford

Lisa Twyford

At the start of my career, I learned quickly that many organisations were full of good intentions, but all too often lacking the skills and know-how to execute effectively. That’s why I founded clear decisions™ over 12 years ago. My vision was simple, I had a desire to help businesses and their people move through change projects with great success.

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