{"id":2129,"date":"2011-04-21T10:04:03","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T14:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thegrowthcoach.com\/central-ohio-north\/growth-coach-challenge-spring-clean-your-business"},"modified":"2011-04-21T10:04:03","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T14:04:03","slug":"growth-coach-challenge-spring-clean-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thegrowthcoach.com\/central-ohio-north\/growth-coach-challenge-spring-clean-your-business","title":{"rendered":"Growth Coach Challenge \u2013 Spring Clean Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"
In Ohio, every year spring faithfully arrives.<\/strong> It brings with it\u00a0rain and rising temperatures that cause the leaves and buds to sprout, the grass to grow, the flowers to bloom, the weeds to explode, my allergies to kick in high gear, and my boy\u2019s baseball season to get underway. And best of all,\u00a0we get to say\u00a0goodbye to winter … quite a harsh one in the Midwest this year.<\/p>\n Also, the new season brings with it talk about spring cleaning.\u00a0For me, it\u2019s really more about a ritual spring sorting and purging … getting rid of all the non-essential clutter in my personal life … especially clothes.<\/strong> Every year, my walk-in closet and dressers inexplicably seem to overflow with non-essential clothes that have multiplied over the prior 12 months. Clothes I simply no longer wear, like, need or use … and sadly, some from the prior spring\/summer that simply no longer fit or aren\u2019t in wearable condition. True for most of us, we routinely and habitually wear only about 20% of our available clothes. That leaves an amazing 80% of our clothes as potential clutter \u2013 non-essential stuff taking up space and creating confusion in our lives. The 80\/20 Rule<\/em> is darn accurate … even with spring sorting.<\/p>\n Every year, I do a thorough purge and give those clothes in good condition to others who can better appreciate them, use them, and like them. The purging process feels great.<\/strong> I simplify my life and help others at the same time. I feel mental relief,\u00a0freedom and a sense of accomplishment.\u00a0 As a bonus, I can better see and access the 20% of the clothes I actually like to wear … no longer buried\u00a0beneath the clutter.\u00a0By removing the massive amounts of clutter every year, I get rid of chaos, complexity, and confusion<\/strong> every time I search for clothes to wear.\u00a0Now, selecting clothes I like to wear takes seconds instead of minutes.<\/p>\n As a business coach<\/a>, I cannot resist the metaphor.\u00a0\u00a0As a business owner<\/a>, what kind of chaos, complexity and confusion have you allowed to develop in your business life?<\/strong> How much non-essential stuff and activities have you allowed to accumulate? \u00a0What massive amounts of clutter are in your business closets, on your desk, on your computer, and in your daily calendar? You know what I mean by business clutter.\u00a0It’s all the low-value, unimportant, non-essential tasks (the trivial many) we routinely and reactively handle each and every day.\u00a0Very often we confuse urgency with importance. Like an overflowing and disorganized closet of stuff,\u00a0business clutter\u00a0consumes our days, clouds our perspective and clarity, wastes our time, clogs our creativity, reduces the flow of meaningful work, and ends up drowning out our productivity.\u00a0Clutter is a major enemy, a thief of time, for an otherwise effective and productive business owner. Up for the challenge to slay your clutter?<\/strong><\/p>\n As a business coach<\/a> for nearly 20 years, I know this much with certainty … every business owner has clutter in their business and personal lives and most of it revolves around doing the wrong type of work each and every day<\/strong>.\u00a0 That\u2019s right, the absolute WRONG TYPE OF WORK on a daily basis. Hard to believe but the honest truth. Because entrepreneurs are too busy being busy, they don\u2019t take the time\u00a0to think and differentiate between meaningful\u00a0and meaningless work.\u00a0Entrepreneurs are simply technicians and doers and get lost in the daily operations of the business … wearing way too many hats and doing way too many things. They habitually engage in work that is not worthy of their time, talents, and energy … again, the wrong type of work.<\/p>\n