A small shoe, a bubble from a spirit level, £1.57, three receipts, two small stones and a shrivelled conker…
“I’ll take ‘the contents of Peter Sutcliffe’s glovebox’ for 400 please, Alex!”
While out on a walk, my daughter found a pine cone she wanted to keep.
“Sure. Put it in your pocket so you don’t lose it”, I said, being the responsible, and pocket aware, parent that I am.
“I can’t”, said she.
“Why not?”, respondeth I.
“Because they’re full.”
It’s amazing what a child accumulates in their pockets – it’s like a mini, portable, time-lapse time capsule – little moments of history.
That’s what kids do – they find something interesting and pop it in their pocket.
Of course, they never actually go back and take the bloody thing out again, so they keep adding stuff…and adding stuff (and adding stuff).
Eventually, you get sick of Crossfitters telling your 9-year-old:
“Go easy on the lifting, bro!”…
…because it looks like she has a full-on Hernia.
Kids aren’t the only ones that accumulate stuff. A lot of business owners, myself included, could do with emptying their metaphorical business pockets once in a while and having a look at their business with a “parental” eye and seeing what we’ve collected over the years:
- The social accounts we check but are never active on. (“Damn. I forgot my Bebo password again!”)
- The courses and books we’ve bought, but never started. (“Best not throw out that Y2K compliance Udemy course – you never know when it’ll come in handy!”)
- Systems we set up in the beginning, but haven’t adapted as we’ve grown (For example, I’m writing this on my Fisher-Price typewriter)
We’ve got to start ditching the useless stuff.
[Insert your favourite divorce joke here]
After all, was it not a wise guru who said:
“Every time I learn something new, it pushes out something old.”
No, it was not. It was Homer Simpson, but there’s still an element of truth to it:
We can’t keep accumulating stuff – we need to get rid of things that no longer serve us.
Not to be another one of those people banging on about stuff you can do in lockdown, but…
Lockdown is the perfect chance to take stock of what you’re doing in your business and get rid of the crap you’ve picked up over the years.
You don’t have to give yourself a complete overhaul – just make a little space – a little pocket – for something new.
Have a great week,
John