Success Impulse: Your Spring Cleaning in Leadership
What is important and what is unimportant to achieve outstanding results? A mental spring cleaning helps to answer this question. Our author gives tips on how to do this.
"Perfection does not come from not adding anything, but from not leaving anything out" is a rather well-known saying. In this case, if we translate "perfection" to mean outstanding results, then it creates a powerful question for your leadership: "What can and should you leave out that gets in the way of your outstanding results rather than helps them?"
What stands in the way of perfection?
The principle behind this is that you can only use every minute of your life exactly once. You can use this minute for something useful or waste it. That in itself is very simple to understand, and yet hardly anyone manages to use their time more than 50 percent productively.
That's why a simple question to ask yourself regularly throughout the day helps: "Is this minute contributing to my top results or to other things?" Important: Top results also include private issues, such as increasing closeness with your children, improving your sleep or increasing your fitness.
Three tips for spring cleaning in leadership
Because the things that are not quite as important in comparison automatically grow like weeds or the stuff in your cubby or on your desk, I suggest a regular "spring cleaning" in your daily work. Here are three steps I recommend for your effective "decluttering":
- Get clear once again about your really most important goals. What do you really want to achieve this year and in the next few years? What does this result in for your monthly and weekly goals? Attention: Never have more than three top goals! Throw the rest away or save them for later.
- Make a list of all the responsibilities and activities that you really need to achieve your goals. And vice versa: what are you doing all day today that you can leave out? Otherwise, there is a danger that we will symbolically add storage space, when in reality throwing things away would make much more sense.
- Start your "garage sale": Which activities and responsibilities do you give to others? Which do you remove because they have become unimportant (note: these are often our cherished toys)? Which do you cut back on a lot? Step 3 is definitely the most difficult. For this, you almost always need a partner or coach to support you and push you forward.
The good news is that after any decluttering, you feel better and full of energy. You'll feel the same way after this spring cleaning. Bonus tip: Do this exercise with your entire team.
To the author:
Volkmar Völzke is a success maximizer. Book author. Consultant. Coach. Speaker. www.volkmarvoelzke.ch
