On any given day, I’m working on at least three different projects from my home office – and I’m also often working remotely. Spring cleaning your work space takes on a whole new meaning for me. Recently, I heard about The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, a book that takes the Japanese principles of reductionism and applies it to your life. Of course, the scenario is a little different since I’m not trying to sort out my day to day home life; but the rules still applied to my business life.
Before You Start, Visualize Your Destination
One of the pieces of advice shared in the book was to visualize your destination. When you spring clean your home – as just about everyone has – you know you imagine how you want it to look. The same goes for your workspace, but it should be about more than how you want it to look. It should be about emotion and aesthetic.
Ask yourself how you want to feel when you’re in your office? What do you want to be able to do better? It a change in the space going to be about how something looks, feels, or how it can be used – and maybe all of the above?
Personally, when I’m sorting through my space, it’s always about function too in a digital space. For me, it’s going to mean adding on some new organizational tools to help my day to day process flow better. Or maybe I need more digital storage space so I can archive and digitally access everything I need?
Discard First
Visualizing your destination can also involve how you do business. Perhaps you’re trying to improve productivity or efficiency? If that’s the case, then policies and processes that don’t work for you need to be discarded. This is easier for start-ups and harder as start-ups move into enterprises. Yet even at an enterprise level, you should still be flexible enough to experiment with new ways of doing things. Throw out what doesn’t work so you have room to try something new.
One of the key principles in the book was to give yourself greater joy in life. The same should hold true for your work space. And if that’s the case, get rid of what doesn’t give you joy. If for some reason, that joyless aspect of business is an imperative, then find a way to make it a bit more fun and personal.
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up mentions that you can’t tidy up if you never learned how. If that’s your case, start somewhere and start small. If that isn’t the case for you, then know that keeping the process of discarding as a regular activity in your business is something that will help you stay flexible.
When it comes to tidying up your business, do what works for you – and enjoy the process. This is about you and what you want in the year ahead and it a process that should be enjoyed.
