12 ways to spring-clean your career

The flowers are beginning to blossom, baseball is back, and spring is in the air. Like it or not, It’s time to do some spring cleaning!

Embracing change is one of the hardest things a person can do. However, especially in a technologically driven world that’s constantly changing, we need to embrace what’s coming – letting go of the the old and willing to embrace the new – if we want to succeed in business and in life.

To gain more insight on professional spring cleaning, I decided to ask my CEO’s and entrepreneur friends over at the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) about the 1 thing you can reorganize (or clean up) to restore order in your business. The YEC is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. This is what they had to say, on 12 things worth spring cleaning:

1. Your To-Do List

Most smaller people tend to get stuck inside their business and have a difficult time getting out. That makes it particularly difficult to focus on big picture tasks necessary to grow. Implementing a to-do list or a system like “Getting Things Done” will help you get everything you need to do in writing and will help you prioritize, thus restoring order in your business.

– Joshua Dorkin, CEO, BiggerPockets

2. Your Inbox

Some professionals find solace in chaos. However, hundreds of emails in your inbox is not normal nor is it productive when organizing your life and your business. There are tons of great services like Unroll.me that can help lower the emails flooding your inbox each day. Creating folders and categorizing project emails is another quick spring cleaning fix that takes less than a half hour!

– Kim Kaupe, Co-Founder, ZinePak

3. Your Team’s Motivation

Motivation is less tangible than vacuuming behind the printer or tidying up your inbox, but refreshing your team’s motivation will yield exponentially higher rewards than any other traditional business spring cleaning item. Get everyone together, recognize high performers and wins from Q1, and talk long-term strategy until everyone is on board with your plans for your team or the company.

– Jared Brown, Co-Founder, Hubstaff

4. Your Cloud

Keep your cloud storage solution clutter-free. Make sure everything is in their respective place and it isn’t just a catch-all. It will boost productivity and make your employees happier when they have to find that sales report from three months ago.

– Brian Barnett, Founder & President, Reverb Clothing

5. Your Brand Standards

Take time to get all of your logos, positioning, messaging and other brand standards consolidated. Ensure everyone understands the brand’s vision and mission, and that they understand how consistent, branded communications reinforce that vision in the marketplace. Purge old files and audit touchpoints such as websites, blogs, ads and stationery to ensure everything is branded consistently.

– Angela Harless, Managing Director/ Co-Founder, AcrobatAnt

6. Your Finances

Some professionals get lost in their visions and in new and exciting projects. But you need to make sure you are positioned financially to withstand challenges. Are your finances in order? Can you sustain current investments and make new ones? It’s good to think about where your money is going and plan for the necessary changes ahead.

– Alfredo Atanacio, Co-Founder, UAssist.Me

7. Your Legal Projects

Legal projects often fall on the back burner, so spring cleaning is an excellent excuse to get your legal house shipshape. Important areas of focus are intellectual property and contracts. Have you worked with a lawyer to review your business and ensure you are maximally protected with copyrights, patents and trademarks? Do you have up-to-date contracts with partners, vendors and clients?

– Basha Rubin, Founder & CEO, Priori Legal

8. Negative Energy

Get rid of negativity. This can be either an individual or part of the business model that is not helping to develop the company, or someone around you who is bringing you or your team down. Be swift and make sure clean-ups are handled immediately.

– Mark Samuel, Founder and CEO, Fitmark

9. Your Shared Files

Organize all your shared files with a consistent hierarchy and interlink them so everyone has an easy time finding task procedures. Whether it’s Google Drive, Dropbox or another system, be scrupulous about organizing your business processes, rough drafts and work product. You and your team will save countless hours and frustration of looking for this document or that process.

– Dave Nevogt, Co-Founder / CMO, Hubstaff

10. Credit Cards

You should cancel any unnecessary credit cards (or debit cards). People often accumulate ancillary services, and they haven’t invested the time in canceling them because they don’t think they’re big enough to worry about. Cancel the card and save some money. Only sign up for services that you really need.

– Lane Campbell, CEO, Syntress SCDT

11. Your Unnecessary Relationships

Over the course of a year, we can accumulate relationships that take up 80 percent of our time but account for only 20 percent of our sales. Because we work with hundreds of customers at a time, we find it useful to cut the external dead weight a few times a year. Removing relationships that absorb our time but yield little results allows our team to double down on our most valuable relationships.

– Ken Cauley, President, Advanced Media

12. How You Monitor Your Goals

The beginning of spring coincides with the end of the first quarter and represents a great opportunity to reorganize how you are monitoring your pursuit of your goals. It gives you the opportunity to check in on potentially recalibrating your goals. But most importantly, it offers a time to reflect on how you’re watching your own goals and what you can do to ensure your team is focused on them.

– Kofi Kankam, Chief Executive Officer, Admit.me

This article is published in collaboration with LinkedIn. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Dave Kerpen is the Founder & CEO, Likeable Local.

Image: A share trader checks share prices at the German stock exchange in Frankfurt, December 18, 2008. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach.