Intention At Work 

By Jeff Pasquale of RapidGrowthCental.com

Simplicity is a basic need, if not requirement, for most people today. Yet many of us feel that it is very difficult to achieve in our lives. Our world is crammed with PIN numbers, user IDs, and passwords. And when we do remember these codes to gain access to our voice mail, email, bank accounts, cars and home alarm systems, we then need to remember how to operate them.

While this is certainly no crisis, the fact remains that too many aspects of our personal and professional lives are already too complicated.

To achieve balance in our lives we must learn how to “intend for simplicity” to occur. We can’t expect someone else to do it for us. The not-so-big secret is that we can make our lives as complicated or as simple as we want.

Life today almost demands that we maintain a mind full of stuff. Our minds are continually organizing and reorganizing, prioritizing and re-prioritizing, strategizing and re-strategizing – without rest. Even our dreams are busy.

Less clutter in our external lives eases the internal clutter. A friend of mine, who is an Executive Coach, starts some of his clients off with an exercise – he calls Cleaning Your Closets. It’s really simple. First, go to one of your closets and open the door. Remove everything, one item at a time, and unless it’s a family heirloom that you just cannot part with, consider it up for removal. The criteria? Anything in that closet that hasn’t been used or needed in past six months gets tossed.
Sound extreme? When was the last time you really looked at your closets? Do you really need all of that stuff?

What we have done by cleaning just one closet is simplified a part of our life. Just like having too many commitments and obligations, an excess accumulation of “stuff” can overwhelm us and make us feel tired and worn down.

Simplicity in the workplace means ensuring that work processes have been consciously simplified to the point where they are easy for the job performers to understand. It means clearly defining how a certain job task is performed, step by step. Including back up steps for when things go wrong. It also means that these processes make it easy for your customers and vendors to work with your company.

Simplicity applies to everything - the individual, the team, even the work processes. When embraced as a clear goal or intention, simplicity has the power to positively change everything and everyone it touches – at home or at work. If simplicity is something you intend for your life, you must first choose for it to come into your life, you must then take actions that support the intention, and then start expecting it to occur on a regular basis.

About the Author:
Jeff Pasquale is an executive coach, consultant and trainer and the President of Rapid Growth Central and The Gap Assessment Company, which provide leadership and transition coaching and consulting services and assessment tools for businesses and organizations from around the globe. For more information, contact Jeff today at Jeff@RapidGrowthCentral.com

©2005 Jeff Pasquale
(Revised excerpt from my book – Intentional Leadership)