Is it Time to Clean Out Your Business?

Today marks the first day of spring, and I’ll admit it – the first thing I thought of when I woke up this morning? Spring Cleaning!

Which is strange, because I did a pretty big Fall Cleaning last year. For me, normally, there is something about fall that makes me want to clean. Wrapping up the summer? Getting ready for the winter? Winding down? I don’t know what it is.

Today though, I was inspired to spring clean!

Not my house, but my business!

I talk so much about things that you can add to your business to make it better. There is a really important opposite side to this — what do you need to TAKE AWAY from your business to make it better?

It is Time to KonMari Your Business

There is much more to the KonMari method than this (the The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing book surprised me by how much it changed my life and how I view the things that I choose to keep in it), but at the core of it you are asked to pick something up, ask yourself if it brings you joy, and if it doesn’t?

Thank it for serving you and let it go.

It was that concept of thanking the object that helped me clean out my closets last year. It finally flipped the switch for me of not feeling guilty about keeping things forever. It has done what it was supposed to do in my life, and now? I can release it.

Once you get started, it is hard to stop. You start to evaluate everything in your life under this lens.

Does it bring me joy? No. Thank you for serving me. I now let you go.

What if you did this to your business?

Is there a product that you offer your clients that you don’t like? Maybe one that you started offering years ago because it was the latest cool thing, but you’ve never loved it?

Take it off of your pricelist. Thank it for serving you – even if you never sold a single one, it taught you that it wasn’t the right product for you. Let it go.

Is there a service you offer your clients that makes you miserable every time someone buys it? It is not bringing you joy.

You have permission to stop selling it. Thank it for serving you – and let it go.

Is there a habit that you have that you don’t like? A life change that you want to make? Think about how the current reality isn’t serving you.

Thank it for serving you, let it go, and then decide what you want the new reality to look like.

What Are You Holding On To That Isn’t Serving You?

I heard Bob Goff speak a few years ago, and he talked about how he quits something every Thursday. He picks something in his life, and he quits it. Big, small. Always quitting. Always trimming things out.

Every Thursday.

It made me realize that like that pair of jeans in the back of your closet that you’re holding on to because they fit you in high school and might fit again, someday, 10 years later, we all hold on to things in our business.

They don’t fit, they aren’t working, and they are just taking up space. We just can’t let them go for some reason.

Here is your permission. Now you can. If it is not bringing you joy? Thank it, and let it go.

You created your business to make you happy and profitable. You get to define your own success. You are the architect of your dream. There is no room here for things that do not bring you joy.

Well, maybe bookkeeping. That doesn’t bring me joy, but it is essential to your business. Fortunately, that is what outsourcing is for. I let that stuff go too.

What can you quit today? How will it make your business better in the long run?

You didn’t start your business to be miserable. There is absolutely no reason to keep doing anything in it that makes you feel that way.