Cleaning out my inbox was only part of the needed spring/summer cleaning I have been needing to get done.  “Lean is just one letter short of clean.”I needed to “get lean” in other others of my life as well….namely the home office.  The other is my home office which often seems to serve as bit of  a pit stop where I come to change the oil and the tires before I race out to complete more laps. 

The problem is the old tires and oil cans and client notes seem to have stacked up pretty high in here. Along with some letters from the IRS, a jury summons, and some unopened birthday cards?!  (Not really on the birthday cards - I always check them for cash).

So I had to retain the skills of an expert… a master at organizational de-cluttering. On Monday I sought and received your help and advice with e-mails…and yesterday I asked for help from my wife Rebecca to de-clutter and re-organize my office. (Something she has been asking to do for nearly a year now.) 

 One of her core philosophies is - a clutter free home /office is the treasured companion of a clutter free mind.  Where I gather and easily attach sentiment to things… Rebecca chucks or throws things away her greatest sentiment is attached to the principle of simplicity.  She says, “If you are unlikely to ever read it, use it, or even look at in the future…it’s just stuff and it’s just clutter or soon will be.”  She’s right, and we all know the old saying “You can’t take it with you when you go.”  But if you don’t have a Rebecca in your life, you may end up moving it around a lot with you before you go.

Still in the sorting, chucking, and simplifying of my office… a couple treasures have been found and key learning’s remembered.

• 1) We must learn to “abandon ourselves to the strengths of others. Trust in them the things we know are not core to ourselves. This principle is at the core or books such as “Good to Great”, “Now Discover Your Strengths”, Max Depree’s “Leadership is an Art” and many others.

• 2) We must have the courage to ask for the help we need. Vulnerability based trust building. “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni - and”The Aladdin Factor”.

• 3) Be open to the possibilities of each moment… in the doing of hard and unpleasant things are moments that can teach us much if we can keep ourselves in a place of learning. My kids too often follow a pattern familiar to my own childhood….and as they sulk through the doing of their chores they miss a great deal of the satisfaction that comes from ” a job well done.” There are almost always great discoveries awaiting most often behind the final push and second effort. Examples here abound… Michael Phelps, Christopher Columbus, Roger Bannister…etc etc.

The treasure of today was this slip of paper found by my lovely, loyal, and pretty dang cute office cleanser Rebecca.  It was a note had written sometime last year(I think) while at a Hotel in Park City, Utah.  It read…

“If you want to retain the loyalty of those that are present, then always be loyal to those that are absent.” ~ Don Spradling -(my old special forces commander said that)

 So as you learn to be lean, you can also learn to be loyal.  Soon you may even come to learn the value of being loyal to principles lean. 

Kirk Out