Thursday, March 14, 1996

Spring Cleaning

I’ve just spent the whole day “spring cleaning” my office. I have re-arranged and thrown out. It is amazing how much stuff accumulates over the years.

I had to do something. My office is not very big, and I was becoming overwhelmed by all the things stacked around me. There were so many books, tapes, boxes, wires, disks, notes, office gadgets, file folders and other things that I was having trouble functioning.

I have taken the offensive, though, by removing a large 8-foot long table from the office. It is now folded and put away in the garage. That has drastically reduced the amount of “desktop” in the office, something which I think will help immensely. There’s that much less space to stack stuff on. We tend to fill the space that’s available to us, and I certainly had the 8-foot table filled. With it gone, I’m forced to better manage the remaining desktop space.

Most of the stuff that filled my office was useless. It came to me, I thought I might need it, and I added it to the pile, never to touch it again. This “spring cleaning” has taught me a great deal about focus. With a cluttered office, it is difficult to get any work done. I’m always looking for something or moving something around or trying to figure out what it was I was writing before I looked over and started thumbing through the 1994 edition of the AT&T 800-number directory. The clutter distracts, and that’s the way life is, too. If you don’t stay focused, there are too many distractions, and nothing ever gets done.

The ability to focus is crucial when going about the business of success in life. Sure, it’s great to be open-minded, but it is focus that gets the work done. Now that the clutter is out of my office, I can find things easier. I can think more clearly. I can get my work done without having to move so much stuff around. When you remove the clutter from your life, you can see things much more clearly. You can follow your goals and accomplish great things without so much mental and spiritual “overhead."

— Ralph Marston

Fear of failure Integrity next

Copyright ©1996 Ralph S. Marston, Jr. All Rights Reserved. The Daily Motivator is provided for your personal, non-commercial use only. Other than personal sharing, please do not re-distribute without permission.