Spring Cleaning – Not Just For Your Home

As the weather warms up and the earth wakes up, our thoughts naturally turn to spring. It’s the season of new growth; a time when we clear away and clean up old things to make way for new beginnings.

Most people have some sort of spring cleaning ritual for their homes. Planting gardens, washing windows and bundling away heavy winter clothes are some of the ways we get ready for a new season.

But maybe your home is not the only place that could use a little freshening up. Have you ever considered a spring cleaning for your business? Here are 5 common areas that may need tidying up.

Tidy up your operations. Do you find that you waste a lot of time on repetitive non-producing tasks? This is a good time to consolidate and simplify the routine but necessary activities that all businesses require. Organization is the key; find and use high-quality programs, or hire a good VA to streamline the processes.

Tidy up your files. Over time a business collects a lot of files, both paper and digital. You may have lists of articles and ideas, inventory and invoices, emails, customer records, e-books you’ve downloaded, and a nearly endless supply of pictures, letters and other documents. Delete those that are outdated or no longer needed. Organize the rest by category and put a system in place to deal with files on a regular basis.

Tidy up your memberships. How many clubs, forums and networking groups do you belong to? Many of us join popular groups with good intentions, and then never get around to making time to participate and take full advantage of them. Decide which networks and activities are most beneficial to your business. Complete and/or spruce up your profiles and make a schedule for regular participation. Delete those that are no longer interesting or useful.

Tidy up your address book. If you’re like most of us, you have business cards, phone numbers written on slips of paper, and address entries in several databases and devices all scattered about in several locations. We need contact information to do business, make referrals and keep in touch. But how long does it take to find the information – especially for people we don’t often speak to. Spring clean up is an excellent time to put all of your contact information in one easy to access format.

Tidy up your reading list. How many mailing lists do you belong to? Usually people sign up for mailing lists in order to receive a free e-book, recording or seminar. Some of the e-zines contain useful information; others are little more than self-promoting sales letters. Too many of them either take up a lot of time, or they clutter up your inbox folder.

These are just a few ways to start a new season by spring cleaning your business. Your VA will be glad to save you time and effort with these and many other tasks.