Decluttering

I get very defensive when people tell me to declutter. Mostly because my place is furnished with books and their threatening hand waves towards My Precious make me want to break out the Braveheart face paint and start sharpening my sword.

It’s time to double down or pull the plug on the things you have not doubled down on by now

The principle of streamlining when it comes to your living space or personal aesthetic is like Marmite: you do you.

But I was forced to reflect on mental decluttering recently when I – gulp – deleted a folder of 42 (the meaning of life, the universe and everything – hurrah) half-baked #LedaWrites articles.

In seven years of 51 weekly missives, that’s not so bad, right?

The drafts (let’s call them that as that is what the folder was called) ranged from a single sentence that would have made a good title… but didn’t… to full length pieces that just… failed to come together. Some ramble. Some try to do too much. Some too little.

I knew not to publish, but I left them to come back to.

And largely… I haven’t.

Funnily enough, the things that didn’t work out the first time round is rarely where inspiration lies.

And I am lucky in that I very rarely commit to write on a particular topic (when I do, I have to come back to it, obviously), but when I am free to indulge in whichever direction I fancy, I explore a few things and some just don’t work out.

So today, I deleted them. I took a deep breath and cleared the folder of anything older than last year. And I will keep doing that periodically.

And I think you should too.

I don’t care if you hold onto a pair of jeans you loved so much back when you could fit into them, when the world was new and lockdown hadn’t changed your relationship with your kitchen.

But I do care about all the ideas that you indulged in, as an organisation, and they linger… not supported enough to be a thing. Not given a merciful end.

All the little teams of two or three in organisations of 300,000. Who were brought in a few years back when (insert trend here) was sexy.

And they got the job and the press release and the travel budget. And then something shiny distracted the organisation and that was that.

They never got the team, executive head space or business clarity as to which direction they should go in. They are ready to go, though. Ready when you are.

Or the partnerships announced to great fanfare. And the POCs that finished and weren’t packed up… but weren’t moved on either.

So people come into work every day and go to meetings and all. And help out with side projects. And find their roles morphing into a new thing that’s OK, I guess, just… not what they were brought in to do.

And before you say ‘ah, yeah, big corporates, roll eyes…’ it is exactly the same inside new ventures… all the ideas your start-up threw at investors for that extra zero and now you have three interns and a goldfish doing R&D… sorry I meant your BNPL offering… your B Corp application… your metaverse solution.

Have you checked these guys building your metaverse solution are still turning up for work? I am only asking because I once worked for an organisation that was particularly bad at this… starting things they never meant to finish, never fully leaning in.

And when we decided to cut some of those initiatives to cut cost… the first thing we had to do was wheel the CEO back to the table a few times because he was so worried about how it would look (nobody – and I cannot stress this enough – literally nobody cared).

The second thing we had to do was talk a whole host of folks back from the door when it transpired that not one but two fully paid employees failed to turn up for their consultations because their Outlook credentials had lapsed in one case four months previously…

Those guys were sipping piña coladas on the beach while the rest of us worked 14-hour days to save the day, and when that little tidbit was leaked by an equally over-worked HR team member… everyone cared, and with good reason.

And look.

Not everyone kicks back and enjoys the lack of attention.

Most people want to do the thing you brought them in for.

But you don’t. Let’s be honest here. It’s been years.

You don’t have time, money or the headspace for this. And you know how I know? This thing that is so incredibly important has had two engineers working on it for the past seven years.

Whatever it is you had in mind, you no longer see it, or the moment has passed, or other things worked out and there is only so much time and money and energy.

It’s fine. It happens. But don’t let it linger.

Look back at the folder of half-baked ideas.

The small teams with inadequate resources, support or funding who never get time with anyone above an SVP for their work. The R&D you never really meant to put on your product roadmap. The things you did for industry citizenship or for an investor to put a tick in a box.

Call it: it’s time to double down or pull the plug on the things you have not doubled down on by now.

It’s OK.

It happens.

You need to try things. Not everything will work out.

But it’s time to call it.

No matter how big you are, you need to conserve strength, time and money so that you can spend it on the things you know you want to do and all the new things you need to try… and dabble in… and play around with in order to work out whether they will be your next be thing or found in a folder called ‘Drafts’ seven years later.

#LedaWrites

Leda Glyptis is FinTech Futures’ resident thought provocateur – she leads, writes on, lives and breathes transformation and digital disruption.

She is a recovering banker, lapsed academic and long-term resident of the banking ecosystem. 

Leda is also a published author – her first book, Bankers Like Us: Dispatches from an Industry in Transition, is available to order here.

All opinions are her own. You can’t have them – but you are welcome to debate and comment!

Follow Leda on X @LedaGlyptis and LinkedIn.