During Spring Break the Parido family tackled a rather large project: cleaning up our basement.
Let me set the context a bit for you. The old adage says: If you have any extra room in your house you will fill it up. When we built our house we choose to build an unfinished basement. Over the past decade we have filled the basement with lots of things. We have things that never found a properly home in the living area upstairs. We have photos, CD’s, books, movies, clothes, kid’s stuff and some random furniture. We also have a good portion of my wife’s old yarn shop and lots of things we inherited when my grandparents passed away. There is also lots of things that actually belong. Said way too simply, there were lots of things in the basement.
It was time to purge and simplify. It was our wildly important goal as a family to have our entire house simplified by this Easter, so Spring Break became the week that we made a big and final push.
To say it was overwhelming is a gross understatement. Yet it is not like this snuck up on us. We have known we needed to do this for quit some time, but we did not know where to start.
Finally, the next step emerged: rent a dumpster. I hate to say that out loud, but it was the next step. We had too much stuff that was simply junk, and until we could get it out of the house, we could not sort as needed. The dumpster allowed us to sort between the good, the garbage and the stuff that was going to Goodwill. (Just for the record, we did 3-4 loads to Goodwill also.)
The dumpster, which was out next step, created space that was needed to organize and simplify.
The magnitude of the project froze us for many years. Admitting we where in need of a massive purge allowed us to take the next step.
A couple of life/leadership lessons:
1. The biggest hinderance in taking the next step is not admitting that you have a problem or a situation/circumstance that is holding you back. You have to own where you are if you are going to grow past it.
2. The best step is the next step. Don’t fret about the all that you must do, become obsessed with what is the next step you must take. Find it. Do it. Move on.
If you find your self asking the large life questions like: What do I do with my life? Do I stay with this job or find a new one? Do I start this new venture or do I keep plugging away at what I have always done?
Your best step is your next step.
You don’t have to figure out what you are going to do with the next 20 years of your life. Figure out what is the most important thing for you to do with the next 20 minutes, 20 hours, and 20 days.
Keep moving forward friends.
kp
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