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You might be wondering how a blog on decluttering will help me and my business growth?
Well, it might surprise you. Let me explain.
We are moving to a new house; our house went up for sale, and it sold very quickly. It’s a buoyant market in the UK at the moment. It may be in other places in the world too.
We have started this huge decluttering and removing things that are broken and things that don’t work or cupboards full of clothes you haven’t worn for four years.
What’s been fascinating about this is that decluttering on a personal level has freed up energy in all parts of our life.
It’s All About Energy
I’m a great believer that life is about energy. Energy moves, it’s flexible, and we need to have the right energy in our business for it to succeed.
I don’t know whether there’s any correlation between the fact that we’ve just had a great business month on the back of major decluttering over the past few months. That’s a fascinating one, isn’t it?
When you think about the time of year, pruning and decluttering is a natural process. Deciding to have a decluttering session around the next four to six weeks will make a massive difference for you.
I’m interested in Chinese astrology, and this month is the month of the water dragon, which is a great month to create change in your life. I’m quite a keen gardener as well; I know that when I cut things back and remove them, they will grow back stronger.
Think about the difference that happens around springtime and when it comes to growth.
If you want to do well, it’s time to look where you have clutter in both your life and business. Think about what you could change and move around; this will make a massive difference.
Let’s talk about a few areas where this can work for you. I’m going to focus on two areas. One is home life because as you start to alter your home life, you will be fascinated by how this will help from a work context too. I’m going to move into work and look at systems, structures and how you do things.
Decluttering Your Home
First of all, let’s start with some easy practical stuff. I have seen this work time and time again for myself and the clients we coach. When they start a decluttering process, there’s suddenly a massive shift in energy for them in their business as well.
The first place for anyone listening to this, male or female, is to look in your wardrobe and your drawers because there will be things in there that you either don’t wear, they’re in the wrong order, or they’re not particularly useful.
Decluttering helps to establish order which saves time and ultimately improves your productivity.
I had a corporate career for many years, and I used to get up very early in the morning and fly or drive to various places. I made sure that all my wardrobes were organised and colour-coordinated. I know it sounds very meticulous, but it certainly did work.
I knew that if I was getting up at four o’clock in the morning and had to be out of the house by quarter to five, all my clothes were lined up and ready to go the next day. It’s incredibly freeing.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes it’s, “When did I last wear this top on a Zoom call? Could I wear this again, or do I need to put on another top or do I need to buy some new ones? Where is that one? Is it in the wash?”.
The stuff that goes on in our heads around this, when you think about it, you could probably save yourself at least an hour a day just by cleaning out your wardrobes.
And of course, this extends to every part of your house.
When you start to think about what you have collected over the years, think about how much space, both physically and mentally, this creates.
Let’s move to the office; it is fascinating when you start to clear things out in the office.
Optimising Your Office
We all know that lovely feeling when the office desk and drawers are clear. Even if you decide to take 10 minutes every morning to do that, watch how your mood shifts by simply implementing this one strategy.
I like to think about our file structures because by having a decluttering process, you save yourself time.
How often do you find yourself saying, “Where is that folder?”, “Can you remind me where we’ve saved that?”.
When you then recreate your folder and file structure, you will be amazed at what comes up. I found an old campaign that we ran ages ago, which was successful but forgotten.
We will be using that again, and I’m sure it will be just as successful.
Decluttering to Reconnect
If you look at your past clients, we’ve often had this conversation with clients of ours where they’ll say, “Oh, yes, yes, I forgot about that client; I’ve not been in contact with him or her for eight months”. When you look at your systems and processes, it may take time, but you’ll be astounded about what comes up for you, what things you find that you can reuse.
And other things you will think, “You know, that is a waste of time” or “That particular client, they’re not our ideal client anymore”.
Get them off the system. Put them in an archive.
All of these things will come up for you as you start to declutter. I often look at all the campaigns and the lead magnets that we have because some things in marketing still work today just as well as they worked ten years ago.
The other thing that I’ve noticed that as I start to declutter, I look at better ways of doing things.
I start to create new procedures because what happens is your mind starts to declutter. Your inner world is reflected in your outer world. And also vice versa.
Achieving Success Through Decluttering
This decluttering process makes a huge difference in our business efficiency and made us re-evaluate what is important.
What is it that I do that makes the biggest shift in the needle?
It would help if you started to look at all these areas as you’re decluttering. That can trim down and free up not only more space physically but also mentally. Importantly, it will give you more time.
One of the things about decluttering is it also helps to inform you about exactly where you can delete things from your business process and where you can delegate.
Sometimes it’s very easy to over-administrate things when we don’t need to. It might be that you are performing specific tasks because you’ve always done them.
Remember, we’re entering a new phase now. Now that Zoom is here to stay, we are working virtually, and video interviewing is taking off. Do you have processes that are no longer serving you and taking up time that could be better spent elsewhere?
Decluttering, something that, should you choose to accept it, could work at multiple levels for you as you reshape, realign, and refocus your business moving forward.
Are you currently ‘decluttering’ your business strategy and marketing plan – taking stock of what’s working and what isn’t?
If you would like to speak to one of our team about formulating a brand-new marketing plan that will bring in new leads every month– get in touch.
Call us on 01524 784311 or click here to book a complimentary consultation with one of us.
