Why you should clean as you go

In the hospitality industry, a clean station is a good station. As you cook, you clean. A sparkling clean kitchen in the middle of service is the difference between a Michelin star chef and an amateur. A clean station allows the chef to be always ready when they need to. It allows them to dial in with extreme focus and consistency on the food they need to prepare. They understand that cleaning their station is just as important as cooking, and treat it as such. But why don’t we take this mindset into the corporate world? Why do we allow ourselves to be consumed by large tasks, and distracted or overwhelmed by small tasks at inopportune times? 

Invite your kid's friends around to clean up your mess

How often do you get swept up in a task across days? What happens when all the small tasks you put off pile up? Nobody likes a pile of dishes stuck in the sink. It can be daunting. It can smell. It can take all day to fix. We must be very careful not to ignore our pile of dirty tasks. We must make sure we clean as we go. 

At least move the salad around the plate so it looks like you ate some

Whether it’s reading reports, sending out company-wide updates, or reaching out to customers for follow-ups. Whether it’s ticking off to-do lists or creating new ones. There are countless routine tasks that should have their own consistent time and place. Consistency breeds innovation. When you confine your monotonous tasks to routine, you give the rest of your day the freedom it needs to be creative. When you clean as you go, your mind is free to focus solely on the larger tasks or problems at hand.