5 ways to clear the clutter Professionally

Here are 5 ways to help you clear out any clutter that may be surrounding your professional life:

1. Clear out old messages: One of my pet peeves is when I call someone and their

voicemail is full or when I receive an email response to a message I sent months ago. What makes this worse are situations where I was reaching out to the person for something work-related. It’s understandable that there are going to be time when you can’t give your messages the attention they deserve but if they’ve piled up there’s no time like the present to set aside a few hours (or days depending on your exact situation) and go through your messages to respond to anything pertinent, delete anything that’s unimportant and archive messages that you’ll need in the future. Moving forward if you take the time to do this once a week this won’t be an issue in the future.

2. Clear out old(er) inventory: If your business is product-based, now’s a good time to look at your inventory. If you have seasonal items from winter that still haven’t sold or products that have a limited shelf life rather than letting them take up space now could be a good time to have a small sale or donate the items.

3. Check your business card supply: I don’t know about you but I only ever pay attention to my business card supply when I realize I’m down to the last couple. This inevitably leaves me scrambling to re-order before the next mixer I attend because I don’t want to be the person that doesn’t have cards. One way to avoid this is to take the time to check your supply now and see if you’re low. If you are, re-order cards now so you won’t need to at the last minute.

4. Review and refresh your marketing and promo materials: This advice isn’t about changing your marketing and promo materials outright, instead it’s about taking the time to objectively look at them and make changes if necessary. Specifically, you want to make sure that it’s still relevant for your brand and that it’s reflective of any current specials that you’re running.

5. Have new headshots taken: Unless your most recent headshot was taken in the last 3 months, take the time to have a new headshot taken. This is especially helpful if you’re a service provider or someone who does a lot of speaking about or for your business as it helps to ensure that you’re promoting the most current version of yourself. Spring is often seen as a time for renewal so it’s the perfect time for you to look objectively at your business in order to ensure that you’re promoting the best and brightest of what you have to offer.