Clean Your Closet
Today I went into my closet to get out a pair of running shoes to go for my daily run. When I reached in to grab them I had a flashback to the day I moved into this house 5 months ago and how organized this closet was. I took great care and time to make sure I had things put away in a manner that made sense that would allow me to get to them quickly when they were needed. Everything had its place and I was certain nothing would get lost. It didn’t matter if it was a new pair of shoes, my favorite ¼ zip, or a photo album I’ve had for 40 years I was going to know exactly where it was. The other thing I wasn’t going to do was make this closet a catch all.
Did I Keep My Promise?
The more time I spent in this closet grunting and groaning about how I couldn’t find the shoes I was looking for the more irritated I became. I said out loud to myself “how did I let this happen? I had vowed never to let this happen again. Why am I in this situation?”
The idea that I was going to keep this closet clean and organized went well for the first couple of months but then I made a couple of purchases, we had some people coming over and instead of taking the time to find a place for things I threw them in the nearest closet. This coupled with me kicking my shoes off into the closet instead of taking the extra 30 seconds to place them there neatly was making things an absolute mess. It wasn’t as bad as how I kept my closet in my first apartment. That was a bona fide danger zone. My mom would come for a visit and everything I owned got stuffed in my closet about 20 minutes before she arrived. When I finally moved out of that apartment I found things I thought were stolen or lost forever. The real problem came when I would replace those things that I had “lost.” I would find myself with less and less space because I had doubles and triples of things I already had buried in a closet.
Cleaning That Closet
There comes a time where we get so fed up, unorganized and overwhelmed that we have no choice but to clean that closet. Our leadership skills and knowledge are the same. We accumulate so many ideas, skills, experiences, stories and practices that we can forget about what we have and don’t have. Information comes at us fast and we have to make a lot of decisions. If we don’t have a system to keep it all together and take time to pull everything out and review it once in a while our brain is going to become a mess. If our brain is a mess there is a good chance the people and buildings we lead in will become a mess as well. Just like a closet has a limited capacity, so does our brain. If we continue to shove stuff into it until that door will reach a point where we will no longer be able to get it to close. The stuff in that closet is going to spill out all over the place and you're going to have bigger problems than just shutting the door. It starts with taking the extra seconds to put things away correctly, because in the end that will save you more time on the back end. Each season you have to set aside the time to review what you have, what you use and what you don’t use and make room for the most important things. It’s no different than rotating your close in the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. We don’t use all of our skills all the time, we just need to know where we have them stored so we can access them when the right situation arises. Remember to light the WICK of leadership this week by Working hard, acting with Integrity, being Committed, and showing Kindness. Have a great week and remember when your commitment is greater than your feelings you get results.
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