What Needs Cleaning?

I’m reaching for my gumbo pot to pour in my sautéed vegetables for my favorite duck gumbo recipe and it’s GONE! I know I just put it on the counter after boiling the duck breasts. Have I gone completely crazy? It takes a couple of days of doing various tasks to make gumbo and today, I get to put it all together. YUM!

I’ve looked everywhere and there is no pot! As I look into the pantry one more time, the dishwasher clicks on. Now I have a suspicion. Swinging open the dishwasher door, here’s my gumbo pot sitting on the bottom rack — CeCe strikes again!

CeCe cleans constantly. I love clean and organized, but I’m also okay getting a little critical mass before undertaking some cleaning chores. My comfort zone is a little bigger than hers. I won’t share my discussion with CeCe on my missing gumbo pot as I didn’t win that one either. But, it did help me to realize that we can learn from CeCe’s mindset of constant cleaning.

With COVID-19, we went digital overnight. Many of us realize now how powerful and effective this is. Why didn’t we clean this up sooner? Why did it take a pandemic to force us to become more digital? I think it’s the same reason I let dishes sit in the sink — it’s easier. But we have more cleaning to do.

Let’s anticipate those moves and execute them so we don’t have as much disruption. What do we know is coming (hard trend) that we can start cleaning up now? Why? Because it makes us distinctive. It provides a competitive advantage. For my gumbo project, washing things as I went provided a nicer meal with CeCe later on. And the gumbo tasted even better knowing I didn’t have mess waiting on me after.