Last two weekends I spent spring cleaning my garage (in between doing some visits and being generally sociable). I verge on the side of the 'that's gonna be useful in years to come' philosophy and as anyone similar will know, it means you need to clean it all out every few years because generally it never is useful.

Anyway, task done for this 5 year cycle and as a result I now have a clean and tidy garage where anything can be found quickly and easily. I even have room for the exercise bike and who knows, I may pluck up the courage to even get on it!

All this reminded me however how critical a spring clean is in the business sense. Whether it be paper or computer based records, there is a solid argument for getting in and cleaning out all of the 'fluff' that so easily accumulates month on month.

Now I am a recruitment CRM and database vendor so I have a vested interest in peddling a 'clean and tidy' mentality. But clearly, anything that speeds the response time to client enquiries or the 'time to hire' cycle should put us into a stronger competitive position.

Maybe enlist support from your systems vendor or your IT support team. Tidying up is a good first step but we all need help and encouragement to get ourselves (and the business) onto the exercise bike.