Dear Success Seeker,

Do you ever feel like you are trapped in a world of clutter and incompletion? It's an awful feeling that weighs you down, confuses your priorities and sucks your precious energy. Ultimately it undermines your ability to achieve your business and personal goals.

To get a sense of it, take a moment now to jot down a few of the unfinished tasks and projects on your to-do list. What happens as you review your list? Your energy level plummets, right? It's like Superman being around kryptonite.

Don't worry. This happens to everyone. But if you are determined to succeed as an entrepreneur, you need to eliminate the clutter and incompletions in order to reclaim that lost energy. In fact completion is such a powerful strategy that it is one of the "Seven Success Accelerator' principles built right into our ProCoach coaching workbooks.

The best way to grasp this concept is to imagine every unfinished task or mess in your life as an incomplete cycle - a partially drawn circle that has been opened but not closed. Each open circle drains your energy until the cycle is closed.

For example, you might see a pile of papers on your desk or notice that your window needs washing. Each of these items creates a new open cycle in your mind. From now on, each time you notice these things you will experience a drain in your energy.

You probably have hundreds of open cycles in your life right now. Is it any wonder that you feel tired and overwhelmed?

Here's the good news. If an open cycle drains your energy, the act of completion does exactly the opposite. Each time you close an open cycle, you experience an immediate energy boost.

These energy drains can be grouped into three general categories: cleanups, completions and deletions.

A Cleanup involves tidying up or dealing with a 'mess' of some sort. It might be an untidy desk, that closet or drawer you are afraid to open or maybe your car needs vacuuming. Look around you right now and you will likely see plenty of cleanup projects.

Completions are unfinished projects or tasks that you want or need to complete. Some may be partially finished while others may not be started yet. Either way, they weigh on you. Some, like income tax, have fixed deadlines. Others are just projects you've been avoiding or putting off.

A Deletion is slightly different. It involves letting go of something or removing it from your space. You may not be a hoarder, however I'm willing to bet that you have a lot of things you don't need cluttering up your space and draining your energy. This is especially true in today's consumer-driven marketplace where we get new stuff all the time.

These energy drains are not static. Every day new cleanups, completions and deletions come into your life. If you don't continually deal with them you will rapidly get completely bogged down!

The good news is that every time you deal with a cleanup, completion or deletion you close an open loop and regain some energy. If you invest the time and energy to stay on top of these things, it can completely transform your life.

My biggest secret. The single most important thing I've learned about dealing with cleanups, completions and deletions is that they take time. In fact the primary reason we have open cycles is because we say to ourselves, "I don't have time to do that now; I'll deal with that later." As if we will have more time at a later point! As Dr. Phil would say, "How's that working for you?"

If you are truly committed to reclaiming your energy, there are two simple steps you can take:

1) Make a list: You'll actually need two master lists for your cleanups, completions and deletions - one for your business/work, and one for the personal areas of your life. Walk through your entire space and add every energy-draining task, project, commitment, obligation or item you can find onto your list. Then set to work on eliminating them, one at a time.

2) Block off time: If you want to stay on top of your cleanups and completions, you must spend time on them every day. What works for me is to schedule blocks of completion time into my week. I do a 15 minute 'surface clean up' daily using a timer. I also block off time every week and weekend to tackle major items on my lists, both business and personal.

I acknowledge that it is not the most exciting concept I can teach you but I can promise you this. Every time you complete something, your energy will increase and the load you are carrying will decrease. Reducing or eliminating your incompletions will truly increase your energy and transform your life.

To your success!

Andrew Barber-Starkey, Master Certified Coach
Founder and President, ProCoach Success System