Hey everyone, it’s Pat Mussieux here. I wanted to come back and share with you a huge ah-ha that I had on the weekend, and a tactic or strategy that I implemented that actually just took the weight of the world off my shoulders. This isn’t going to be anything Earth shaking or mind-boggling. It’s one simple thing that I decided to do that made a world of difference, and I thought to myself, I can’t be the only one going through this. Let me set it up for you.

Last week I was behind closed doors at the Idlewyld Inn. It was the time for one of my clients’ retreats. We go behind closed doors for two-and-a-half days with my coaching clients to create the business plan for the next few months for them. We talk about what they should start doing, stop doing, keep doing, and so on. In those retreats, I give my clients some really good strategies and tips for success. One of the things I keep telling them is that when we come together at the retreat and we create some goals as part of the business plan for the next three-to-four months before we come together again – because anybody can focus on something for three months – I’m always saying to them, “Listen, one of the things I want you to do is when you set the goal, then A, surround yourself with the people who will support you with that goal, and B, accumulate or read or access the information that will support that goal.” 

It’s great advice. It works really well. What happened is last week I was away from my desk a fair bit, so I decided on the weekend that I wanted to sit down in some quiet time and get a grip on my electronic inventory. That’s a really polite word for “clutter.” Electronic clutter. When I opened my email and I kept looking in, it was like, oh my gosh, this stuff is piling up like crazy, and it actually became overwhelming. I reached a point where I sat back and I thought, all right, time to clean house.

What I did is I went into my inboxes and I put things in categories, the From category so that it batched where the emails were coming from. I was a bit stunned, actually, to see the accumulation of emails from things – marketing, for example. I get marketing flyers from the Simply clothing line, from M&M Foods, from Starbucks, etc. That was one category.

Another category piling up was links to different webinars that I had every great intention of sitting back in a quiet moment, plugging in and watching the webinar. Or another one is podcasts. There are quite a few really great podcasts out there and I’ve come to realize that I just can’t get them all in in a given day or given week. I went through all of the categories of these. There were the newsletters from Small Business Trends and things like that, which I love to keep on top of, podcasts, marketing flyers, My Fitness Pal – because I love to get fitness and health information, the webinar links, Gary Vee information, Tim Ferris information. That’s not even touching on emails from clients and prospects. 

So here’s what I did. In that category, I dared to push two buttons, and one was to select and the other one was to delete. Yes, I deleted them all. I just cleaned it all out. Not the client stuff, but all this other stuff. Here’s one realization I came to. It comes down to the fear of missing out. I love to be on top of trends and good solid information and content, and where I had gone awry and strayed was that I was not following my own advice.

When I sat back and I looked at my goals, the revenue goals, the prospecting goals, the sales call goals, the health goals, when I looked at my goals for the month of May, in particular, then what I realized was I could narrow down my focus in my inbox as well and delete everything else, and that’s exactly what I did because, as I tell my clients, that information is out there. It’s out in the universe. If I want a certain piece of content from Gary Vee, I know I can get it on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. He’s all over the place. The same with the Tim Ferris information. If I want to access what’s going on with Starbucks, I know where to get it. So I just hit that old delete button and I let it all go up into the universe, and then I closed my laptop and sighed a breath of relief.

That’s all I wanted to share with you today because I know I’m not alone and I know many of you, too, have the fear of missing out on information or content. What I would say to you, and what I tell myself, is to take my own good advice. Just sit down for a minute, sort through all of the electronic clutter, and hit delete. Clean out your deleted files, clean out your sent files, clean out your inbox. Just clean it all out and let the energy flow, and that’s my tip for you today.

If you find this useful and helpful, comment below. I’d love to know. Perhaps you have different habits that serve you. I’m always open to learning from other people. Hit the share button if you’re hearing other people say, “Oh my gosh, I’m overwhelmed. There’s just too much.” We are in the age of infobesity. It’s coming at us like a tidal wave. It’s up to us to take charge, take control, and hit delete, and that’s it. That’s all. Take it to heart. See you next time.