The weather is starting to tease warmer days. The sun sticks around a bit longer each evening. Trees are popping buds of new leaf growth and flowers. Things are just greener. Those cold temps and high winds of winter may not be completely done with us, but there’s no doubt that the clock is ticking on how many times we’ll need to dig out the warmer coats and clothes. Spring has arrived!
The business pundits and blogs talk a lot about new beginnings in January. Flipping the calendar to a new year feels like the right time to take stock, refocus, and launch initiatives with renewed gusto and fervor. Sure, there’s merit to that, but it’s certainly not the only time to kick-start your plans, evaluate your goals, and reinvigorate your purpose and passion. Any day is a good day for all that. If, however, you need a particular trigger to signal the moment is now, the advent of spring is a good one.
With the change in seasons comes a new quarter in your fiscal year. Spring may have started on March 20, and the 1st quarter (or 2nd, depending on how your fiscal year runs) closed out just 11 days later. It’s a good time to step back and assess your progress toward your goals. You’ve got three to six months of progress toward your annual financial targets. You’ve got some stats to help you evaluate your margins. You’ve got an idea about how current market trends are impacting your expenses and your profits. Now is a good time to make adjustments.
What steps do you need to take to lower your costs and increase your income? Are you on track to hit your goals? Are there market trends at play you did not anticipate? What tweaks can you make now to compensate so you’re not far off your targeted mark at year’s end?
It’s not just about your financial targets, either. Take the time to review the goals and objectives you set for yourself – personally and professionally – at the start of the year. What progress have you made on those? Are they still realistic? Do you need to make adjustments to keep them in reach? Have you already met a few of them? Is it time to add a few more stretch goals to the list? Is it time to recalibrate your efforts to get back on track or to slide your benchmarks into a more realistic space? Use this moment to evaluate and adjust.
Someone coined the term “spring cleaning” for a reason. Now is a good time to hit pause and get organized. If you’ve been keeping your head down and working hard to get your business (and life) ducks in a row, it’s possible things on your desk and your inbox have gotten a little chaotic. Carve out a little space to tidy up and get things in order.
Scan through those emails and use that little delete button liberally. All those “Got it” and “Thanks” replies – gone. Messages from your team and partners on projects you’ve closed out? Tuck them in a project folder if it’s helpful to have it for future reference. Delete the rest. All those project folders? Archive the ones that refer to finished work. The newsletters you haven’t read, the sales pitches you’re not interested in? Gone.
The random saved files on your desktop and OneDrive? Drag and drop them into a shared folder on the network if they’re useful for future reference. Consider deleting early drafts that didn’t make it past initial stages. The bits that were helpful are saved in the final version. The file “Pitch draft 1a team review” is probably not a useful file at this stage. Go ahead and let it go. If you think the early idea outlines could come in hand later, or there was input you don’t want to forget, jot those things down in a notes document and save that – but let the big file go.
Then turn to your physical spaces. Printed pages and notes that may help you navigate future projects can find their way to a folder stored in its proper cabinet. The rest? Recycle them. The to-do list notes you scribbled on a scrap paper and then promptly lost under a pile of other pages – toss it. The post-it notes of ideas and reminders that have long since lived past their usefulness? Ditch them. The white board full of ideas you have since moved beyond, take a photo of it (and store that photo on your shared network somewhere if it’s useful), and then clean the board for your next brainstorming session.
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