I often do a spring clean through folders, bookmarks, contacts and now my twitter account. I could use the time savings excuse not to do it but I know it’s an excuse. Small amounts of time spent on cleaning pays wonders in productivity. The kicker is that great clean mind feeling. It’s so much easier to work.
Yesterday while working on some demo/marketing slides for Saasu I realised how many web-pages, screenshots, images and thumbnails that 8 years of business will accumulate. It made life very slow and very difficult, surfing the directory structure and filtering. It took half a day to do something that should have taken an hour. So post our next release it’s getting a spring clean.
Clean out some people
Likewise my twitter account. I cleaned out people. Yes, that sounds horrible. If you aren’t following me then I cleared you out. Main reason is that I like twitter for the conversation and will push not to have it become a marketing soapbox. A little marketing is ok, but balance is required. After all the real world soapbox is pretty dead, and that’s because it wasn’t a conversation.
Time cost vs. benefit of the clean-up
There is a peak where productivity gains are lost relative to time spent cleaning. So the short sharp super clean is the way to go.
Minimalism is a great antidote for messy
The simplicity of minimalism is so rich. When you distil out the very best ideas and possessions from your life and concentrate your thoughts and energy on them then their richness grows immensely.
If you’re messy your probably impacting others
Just look at messy teens sending their parents nuts. That problem pervades the world and no doubt is a major factor in parent/teen relationship problems that are all too common.
Last word
Stay messy, if you like it. I saw a pig once who was damn messy and he looked very happy, happier than me I’d say. So there’s nothing wrong with being messy if your happy in it and it doesn’t impact others.
