Declutter And Clear Your Path To Success: How To Spark The Joy In Your Business
We all know what it’s like to be spread so thin that there’s very little time to get things done, let alone do it well. We get stuck in the minutiae and lose sight of WHY we do what we do. All of sudden we’ve lost the joy and passion that led us to begin the business in the first place.
Studies show that we work more effectively and efficiently when we have clarity of our job’s purpose. By getting to the root of our business needs, we whittle down our goals, and we minimize our priorities and tasks. As a result, we become more focused, we understand our message and we become more productive.
This is similar to Marie Kondo’s message around tidying up.
Using The KonMari Method To Declutter Your Business
Marie Kondo is a Japanese organizing consultant and author. She has written four books on organizing, which have collectively sold millions of copies. Among other tactics, she created the KonMari method, a system of simplifying and organizing your home by getting rid of physical items that do not bring joy into your life. In other words, she teaches people how to declutter their life.
As a business coach, the reason I find Marie’s methods so compelling is due to how the same wisdom applies to running a business, especially a small business.
Being Organized And Being Successful
When you’re a small business owner, it is easy to lose sight of the vision for your company and objectives for your brand because small business owners wear so many hats. One of the challenges is learning how to stay level-headed among the competing priorities that take up your valuable time.
The reality is that in business not everything can be a priority.
It is impossible to truly “focus” or prioritize ten different things at once and be good at all of them. You can’t ignite your spark of joy when you’re buried under a to-do list. You’ll lose sight of what’s most important, creating real barriers to reaching your business goals.
To be successful, it’s critical to be organized, effective and efficient. In order to achieve your business goals, you need to learn how to prioritize, and hone your ability to focus. The act of decluttering your thoughts, your calendar, your desk, and most importantly your to-do list, reveals the path forward and allows you to tap into the joy that keeps you fulfilled.
Now, using Marie Kondo’s book ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’, let’s apply her method to decluttering your business.
PRIORITIZE & PLAN: “Follow The Right order”
Planning is an intentional act of priority setting. Planning out your day, week, and even your month helps you prioritize and avoid distraction. It compels you to commit to specific days and times to work on one critical piece at a time.
Creating a sound action plan provides clarity and removes the tendency to multi task.
And why shouldn’t we multi-task? Because our brains are wired to do one thing at one time and adding tasks doesn’t expand the brain’s capacity; it only increases its cognitive load. Research shows that multi-tasking actually wastes as much as 40% more of your time than single-tasking does.
A sound action plan identifies areas where a business needs to prioritize. Whether it’s completing and executing your marketing plan, connecting and networking for business development, or scheduling sales calls to build your pipeline. Whatever the priority that requires your most attention, you must plan the time ahead and give it your undivided focus and effort.
FOCUS: “Purge What You Don’t Need”
As Marie Kondo says, “one characteristic of people who never seem to finish tidying up is that they attempt to store everything without getting rid of anything. When things are put away, a home will look neat, but if the storage units are filled with unnecessary items, it will be impossible to keep them organized, and this will inevitably lead to relapse.”
This is the same as focusing on your business. If you’re working on a prioritized task but your mind keeps drifting to next week’s to-do list or next month’s speaking engagement, you’re sabotaging your effectiveness of in the “now”.
Focus is so important because it is the gateway to perception, memory, learning, logic and most importantly problem-solving and decision-making. If you can’t focus on the task in front of you then you will be challenged to produce quality work.
ACTION: “Ask Yourself What Sparks Joy”
“A dream becomes a goal when action is taken towards its achievement.” – Marie Kondo
The joy of moving your great idea to a real business model requires a series of steps to make the dream a reality. It is action that is the starting point of every business pursuit and it is what brings joy and satisfaction to what you want to achieve.
Once you’ve launched the business, action is the engine that moves your business forward and are the tactics to strategy. Action leads to results, and results are the stepping stones to achieving your business goals.
When deciding on which actions to take over other actions, Marie Kondo advises, “Keep only those things that bring you joy.” In other words, choose to do the things that get you ahead.
Celebrate the WINS: “Show Gratitude For What You Have”
Running a business is challenging. Some days you are in the flow and all is going according to plan. Other days you ask yourself why you even started.
My learn – and the perspective that I share with my clients – is to show gratitude for being on the journey. View every day as an adventure regardless of the outcome. Learn all the time. Stay curious. Breathe. And most importantly, celebrate EVERY win, no matter the size. This helps you on the days when a win seems hard to come by.
How A Business Coach Helps You Tidy Up And Stay Focused
One of the toughest things about being an entrepreneur/small business owner is remaining objective in your own business, being able to see the path forward clearly. Sometimes we fool ourselves into believing we have a clear perspective, but in truth we get too close to make unbiased opinions.
This is where a business coach comes in.
A business coach holds you accountable to your goals and teaches you strategies on how to get there. Beyond providing a third-party perspective, your business coach is your mentor and provides expertise from previous experience.
Conclusion – contact us for a FREE half-hour business coaching session, and we can help you begin decluttering your business and marking you on the road to success.