out with the old

today a couple of my staff accountants and I cleaned out the basement at the office. 

let me tell you there was a lot of J-U-N-K down there.

by law we are required to keep files for seven years and as a matter of practice we keep all files for our current clients indefinitely.  mind you some of our clients have been at our firm since the early 80's so that's a lot of files people.  we spend a significant amount of time shuffling and re-organizing the files.  current years files are upstairs and prior year files in the basement.  at the time you are shuffling all these files it seems like such a pain but it is well worth when you need to locate that old file and you can!

it has been about 10 years since the last BIG basement clean-up and things were getting a little cramped down there.  we had so much stuff that we didn't need being stored down there that we were running out of room for the stuff we did need to keep aka the client files.  I can say without a doubt that there were things that were disposed of today that should have been disposed of 10 years ago.  But hey, better late than never!

i am happy to report that after several trips to the recycle and the dump; the basement has been cleared of all of the "unnecessary" stuff that was being stored down there.

several times I picked something up today that was obviously broken when it was brought to the basement and i thought to myself and out loud several times..."why in the world did we put this down here?"  what is it that makes you keep a broken piece of office equipment?  i mean SERIOUSLY?!  i believe i threw away at least 7 broken fax machines today?!  WHAT!??!

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what about other kinds of "junk" that we tend to hang onto?

what about emotional junk?  how many of us have hung onto some that for WAY.TOO.LONG??

anyone raising their hand out there??  I am because I have!

anyone keepin' a "broken 1985 fax machine" or two around?

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it's so easy to do.

something breaks.  we are busy. we don't have time to deal with it or don't know how to deal with it so we just push forward.  stuff it away "in the basement".  surely we can "repair it" later when there's more time.

something else breaks.  we're still busy.  stuff some more "junk" away.

something else breaks that reminds of the first thing that broke.  both those things get stuffed down "in the basement"because we are again...busy!

and before we know it there's no more room "in the basement" for the stuff we NEED to keep in there because we are carrying around "7 broken fax machines". 

Then smallest thing breaks and  we are all wiped out.  all our energy has been used to keep the old "junk" stuffed down in it's place that we don't have anything left to deal with the new "junk".

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is time to "clean out the basement"?! time to purge that "1985 fax machine"?

Jesus said...

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30



just ask and he'll be there to help you get things sparkling clean!