A while ago I helped a mate move flats. He had only been there about 5 years after becoming a “bachelor” again after his family grew up, but the significant amount of clutter accumulated was unanticipated, and surprising. All sorts of proposals, manuals, brochures, old gear, and stuff that at some point passed the “might be useful one day” test had accumulated, and the clean out released lots of space, and a recognisable organisation for the remainder.
It occurred to me that businesses are the same, they accumulate all sorts of organisational and personal clutter that takes up valuable space and time, creating blockages and “work-arounds” in processes, effort that would be unnecessary in a cleaned, disciplined environment.
An aggressive clean-out of physical stuff, but more importantly redundant processes and rules from time to time would deliver significant productivity benefits, at very little cost.
