Guy Reams (00:02.466)
Day 155, taking out the trash. My wife gave me that look last night when I got home late. I do not care how busy you are. I do not care how tired you are. But sometimes you just have to take out the trash. Sure enough, the kitchen can was overflowing and the overflow bin that we leave just inside the garage door was also full too. She was right. It was time to take out the trash.
I woke up this morning thinking about my late evening trash hauling and I realized the same thing happens in almost everything we do. The buildup is slow. You ignore it because other things feel more urgent. Then one day someone points it out or you finally notice and you cannot avoid it anymore. Even in software development, there is a garbage collection process. Systems need it or they slow down and eventually fail.
My Slack environment, for example, is full of dead and inactive channels. My hard drive is full of stuff I have not touched in years. My Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, Microsoft, whatever they call that thing, and Notion repositories are even worse. My bank account has not been reconciled in decades. My closet is full of clothes that I'm not even sure that Goodwill would take. Then there are processes, procedures, and projects lying dormant and unattended.
Things I started with good intentions and now just sit there, taking up mental space, even when I'm not looking at them directly. When I was young, my mom would often do a spring cleaning. She would pick something messy and completely clean it. You would get a sense of accomplishment when you opened that pantry door afterward and everything was organized and cleanly marked. All the odd and discarded items were thrown away. It felt lighter. It felt possible to find what you needed again.
I sit here in my office now looking at my inbox, the chrome tabs that are all still open from three days ago, the bookshelf with paper stacked in front of the books, the pile of bills in a bin that I keep meaning to sort out but never do, and then I see the empty trash can beside my desk and that fills me with hope. At least the garbage is empty. The buildup is slow. You ignore it because other things feel more urgent. Then one day you cannot avoid it anymore. Maybe the lesson is not complicated. Maybe it is just this.
Guy Reams (02:25.046)
You have to take out the trash. Not once, but on a regular basis. Not because it is inspiring or strategic, but because it needs doing. Because when you let it pile up, it weighs on you, and in ways you do not always notice until it is gone. The trash does not take itself out. My Slack channels do not archive themselves. The old files do not delete themselves. The projects you are never going to finish do not close themselves. Someone has to do it, and that someone is you.
So today I'm going to pick one thing, maybe it's the inbox, maybe it's the benefit bills, maybe it's that actual trash can again, but I'm going to take something out, clear something away, and make a little more room for what matters. Because sometimes the most important thing you can do is not add something new. Sometimes it's just simply taking out the trash.