Joy

Marie Kondo is a celebrity organizing consultant, who helps overwhelmed people declutter their life. Her process is simple: She let’s people touch an object and if the object doesn’t spark joy, the object will be discarded.

This idea of joy can be a useful approach for busy professionals as well. Think of the last time you were working at peak performance, getting things done easily, and achieved great success. Most likely, the entire process gave you joy. 

If you want to operate more often at peak performance, it’s therefore essential to not only focus on those activities which fuel your energy, but more importantly, get rid of those activities which drain your energy. There are three areas to quickly enhance your happiness and productivity: 

• Clients: Usually your worst clients add massively to your headaches, but hardly add to your bottom line. What if you fire those clients?
• Tasks: If a repetitive, mind numbing task has to be done on a regular basis, what can you do to automate this activity to a process or system?
• Services or products: Which services or products do you currently provide, which are difficult, cause internal anxiety, and don’t create much value anyway?

What can you do today in one of these three areas—clients, tasks, and services or products—to pro-actively declutter your life and take control of your own peak performance?

Photo Credit: iStockPhoto/BiZhaMox