Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 39 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Spring cleaning
— From Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Happy Spring! And Happy Fall to our gurupies in the Southern Hemisphere! (Gurupie = blend of guru and groupie = how I fondly refer to the EntreGurus’ community, because we all follow the ideas of the gurus.)
This is a time for cleaning, not just our homes, but also our schedules and our minds. Let’s get rid of all those commitments and thoughts that no longer fit us, and substitute them for those that inspire, enlighten and empower us to reach our goals.
In Essentialism, Greg McKeown says, “Think about what happens to your [closet] when you never organize it… it becomes cluttered and stuffed with clothes you rarely wear. Every so often it gets so out of control you try and purge [it]. But unless you have a disciplined system you’ll either end up with as many clothes as you started with because you can’t decide which to give away; end up with regrets because you accidentally gave away clothes you do wear and did want to keep; or end up with a pile of clothes you don’t want to keep but never actually get rid of because you are not quite sure where to take them or what to do with them.”
“In the same way […] so do our lives get cluttered as well-intended commitments and activities we’ve said yes to pile up. Most of these efforts didn’t come with an expiry date. Unless we have a system for purging them, once adopted, they live on in perpetuity.”
The best approach for our personal and professional closet, as well as our physical one too (why not?), is as follows:
- Explore and evaluate. “Instead of asking, ‘Is there a chance that I will wear this someday in the future?’ you ask more disciplined, tough questions: ‘Do I love this?’ and ‘Do I look great in it?’ and ‘Do I wear this often?’ If the answer is no, then you know it’s a candidate for elimination.” In your life, be it professional or personal, the equivalent is asking, “Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution towards my goal?”
- Eliminate. “Let’s say you have your clothes divided into piles of ‘must keep’ and ‘probably should get rid of’.” Are you really ready to get rid of them? We usually start hesitating… “If you’re not quite there, ask the killer question: ‘If I didn’t already own this, how much would I spend to buy it?’ This usually does the trick.” In life, the killer question is: “If I didn’t have this opportunity, what would I be willing to do to acquire it?” And if you want to take it up a notch once you have explored your options, the next question is, “What will I say no to?” Of course, it is much harder to say no to opportunities (and sometimes very good ones) than to give your clothes away to charity, but then again, keep going back to the question in Number 1.
- Execute. “If you want your [closet] to stay tidy, you need a regular routine for organizing it.” In business an in life, “once you’ve figured out which activities and efforts to keep—the ones that make your highest level of contribution—you need a system to make executing your intentions as effortless as possible.” Among the many ideas that McKeown suggests for executing the discipline of keeping our personal and professional closets neat and tidy is asking the following questions with each project you are about to undertake: “How will we know when we are done?” “What are all the obstacles standing between me and getting this done?” and “What is keeping me from completing this?” Also, replace the idea of “this has to be perfect or else” with “done is better than perfect.” In the case of an “obstacle” being a person, say a colleague, who is swamped and has not given you what you need, the author says that being kind and helpful is always the best bet. Ask, “What obstacles or bottlenecks are holding you back from achieving X, and how can I help remove these? Instead of pestering him, offer sincerely to support him.”
ACTION
TODAY: Make a list of the commitments that are in your personal and professional life’s closet. Then go through the questions in No. 1 and No. 2 above to determine whether it’s best to keep them or not.
FUTURE: Just as you would give your gently worn clothes to a charity for someone to get a second life out of them, those projects that you undertook at some point deserve to be given a new life under someone else’s attention, work and enthusiasm. I think of those projects as puppies: you love them dearly and they are adorable, but it’s impossible to keep them all; so you make sure that they go to a loving home where they will live a happy life and lack nothing. Same here. Don’t drop all your unwanted projects abruptly (unless you want and there are no consequences). Instead, find a loving home for them. Your conscience will be at peace and the people involved in the project will be grateful. A loving home could be a colleague to chair the committee, a fellow in your industry to take care of a client you can no longer serve, another parent to take your place at your child’s school bake sale, another member of your charity’s board to coordinate this year’s gala, etc.
Know someone who needs to do a bit of Spring cleaning? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!