This great, rambling (in a good way) post from Sam Conniff, one of the Social Enterprise Ambassadors got me thinking about how a de-junking process can both bring things to light (that document halfway down the pile with URGENT! scrawled on it), spark ideas, and help clear the decks for a new beginning. The irony of this is that I am perennially awful at doing this, so my desk usually looks like an explosion in an origami factory. When I do clear it, it’s inevitably more beneficial psychologically / mentally than in any improved administrative efficiency.
[my desk at its neatest; large piles to left and right obscured in photo]
Anyway, Sam’s post is entitled "So I spent the day today clearing seven years of shit out of my office", but you could also end that with "….out of my head", and there’s some great (and very funny) stuff in there:
– "now we have the case studies, the client base and proof of the business and social benefits of our approach, seven years ago we just had some really crazy folding, flapping cardboard props we’d produced in a moment of madness"
– "whilst there was no mention of ‘Social Enterprise’ in any of the old papers I was going through, the ideals, the ambitions and the emphasis of everything we were trying to achieve was clearly all heading towards the place we know are in"
– "to start a charity [the Livity Trust] that opened it’s doors with £50k in the bank from the UK music industry to fund disadvantaged kids to take on work placements at independent record labels was yet another seven year lesson that being ‘flexible’ makes business sense"
When I wrote "SSE will co-ordinate the Ambassador blogs" in our project proposal as one of the partners in this scheme, this is exactly what I hoped would be the result. Unfettered, direct, passionate, insightful communication from someone who wasn’t much known in this world a year ago. And for Sam (who I’ll ask in a few weeks time), I hope it’s been equally beneficial: as an archive, a place to communicate freely, and as a way of clearing headspace.
And for me, I’m inspired…and off to tidy the desk.
