better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

How Heavy Is Your Briefcase?

20 May 2012

Or you could ask: how heavy is your handbag? Or your flight bag?

I was walking back to my car, after a great coaching session with a client, when two things occurred to me. Firstly, I realised that my briefcase was actually quite heavy and seemed to have put on a few pounds recently. Secondly, I realised I’d used one pad of paper, one pen, one diary and one client folder in the whole of the three-hour session. Which made me wonder what I was doing carrying something so heavy?

I like my briefcase. It’s been round the world with me (it likes business trips) and has never let me down or uttered a cross word. It’s a faithful companion, but it does seem to like swallowing bits of paper, pens and cables to charge things that now require a power source.

The problem here is that I carry these things around all the time, whatever the occasion, and I never stop to ask if I really need them that day.

So, I got tough and had a little experiment. I left everything behind and just took a diary and a day book out to meetings. Nobody died. This was great!

Then I had an idea…I could downsize my beloved A5 Filofax and buy a smaller daybook. Genius! So now I have a very lovely new slimline Filofax and a neat little daybook. I’m going to live dangerously and leave the spare pens and cables at home. How exciting and how liberating!

Having made the essential items smaller I can now fit into a slim laptop case what I used to squeeze into my bulky briefcase.

I may even leave behind my trusty Post-It notes, although we don’t want to get silly now do we?

So my briefcase now contains: filofax, day book, kindle, pencil and that’s it. The kindle is there because it contains reference books as well as reading books. The Post-Its may sneak back in, I’ll leave them on the desk and let them decide for themselves.

Take a look into the dark heart of your briefcase, handbag or flight bag? What are you carrying around that you could leave behind? What clutter is getting in the way of your business success?

Les is more: less clutter means more focus on the important things!

So, what can leave behind this week and how can you lighten your load?