What Items are on Your Spring Cleaning List?

Jenn Schoemer, Project
Manager at Rockton Software

I have never been a huge fan of spring—Mud Season as Adrienne Lilly, Client Service Manager at Rockton Software, would call it—and for that very reason . . . the mud. I do, however, love what spring means; it is a time to clean out the old and make way for the new. In spring, change is everywhere; it is one of Mother Nature’s ways to spark movement: longer days, warmer weather, and an occasional shower. During spring, it is hard not to get motivated.

The normal spring cleaning that we think of is about cleaning out the garage or house, sometimes even starting a healthier lifestyle. What about at work? Is there a way to pull the motivation into our work lives, as well?

Here are a few spring cleaning ideas based on what we are focusing on here at Rockton Software:

• Allow time to sharpen the saw. For the Stephen Covey fans, you know the value of taking personal time to improve your skills. If you continue working on cutting down a tree without stopping to sharpen the saw—it will take twice as long.
• Focus on continuous improvement http://rocktonsoftware.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-2012-rockton-review.html.  Now is a wonderful time to review processes to see where improvements can be put in place. The best thing that you can do is to pull the entire team together (I would even recommend other employees from different teams) to analyze the process. The old way of doing things isn't always the best way, but you will never know unless you take the time to revisit it. I would also challenge you to starting having retrospectives. Here at Rockton Software, depending upon the team, we have them weekly or every three weeks—these are meant to see how everything is going and make sure we are all still working to achieve our company goals. 
• Get moving! What is stopping you from trying something new? What is stopping you from taking a new suggestion to the boss or team? Everything starts somewhere. In a lot of cases, we even have to fail. Too often the fear of failure stops us from moving forward, instead, take time to celebrate the failure, learn from it, and use it as fuel to motivate you to continue. A key to failure, taken from the book, “Change Anything,” learn how to fail forward so get moving! 
• Welcome change. As the seasons change, we too need to welcome, initiate, and be drivers for change. Yes, change is uncomfortable . . . but how else is a company or individuals going to grow if there isn’t some discomfort? Think of a runner, they have conditioned their bodies to the same thing over and over. If that same runner was to climb four stories of stairs, they would be most likely huffing and puffing when they got to the top. This should be the same thing with our work. If we keep doing the same thing over and over, our muscles become accustomed and conditioned; this can be good, but we also need to stretch ourselves in order to achieve levels of greatness.

So, what spring cleaning items are on your list?

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