I am a stairmaster. I’ve lived in a single story house for only two years of my life; the rest of the years have involved going up and down stairs between floors. I wonder if the total number of steps up and down is in the hundreds of thousands or has broken a million by now. My knees will vote for a million.

I heard a radio interview a while back of older folks who had practical advice to share with others. One interview out of the many stuck in my head like peanut butter on marshmallow fluff. A woman said something very simple, but rich in wisdom.

She said, “ Never go up or down the stairs empty handed.”

I know you have most likely also heard that advice from your grandmother or your mother more than once. The advice is rich because, below the surface level, the message of saving trips up and down the stairs is a message of sage business advice, too.

People in business spend a lot of time going up and down the stairs of their daily work empty handed. What I mean by this is the fact that you can get so conditioned to performing the routine tasks in your work, that you seldom pause before starting each task to think about how you can save time or do a better job with each task.

1. As an example, if you have an annual event like attending or exhibiting at a trade show, a ten minute post trade show debriefing session for improvements and checklists for faster organization next year, will make stair climbing in the future minimal.
2. If you find that you are assembling data with math calculations for reports frequently, then take a few minutes to build a spreadsheet to make it easier each time you want to create a new report. Retrieving and organizing data is fatiguing and boring, much like making one more trip up and down the stairs for a laundry basket.
3. If circumstances permit, invite those under your supervision to attend an industry meeting, sales call or problem resolving session for some observational experience to help save steps in the future.
4. If your driving commute permits, bring a book on tape or CD. If you have a chauffeured commute, bring reading material. Don’t be caught empty-handed. . . or empty-headed.
5. Plan time daily or weekly to spend a few minutes thinking about how many extra trips were made up and down the stairs during the time period and how you can reduce the steps.

There is nothing wrong with being a ladder climber, but work on reducing your trips up and down the stairs this week, please.

Climb the stairs to success with my 8 simple strategies for success. Want to learn more? click here

"Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments." -- John Steinbeck

"A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time." -- Mark Twain

"I don't mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I've saved all year." -- Victor Borge

As a child, stairs were one of my favorite entertainment centers. From harmless slinky play to slightly more harmful, but creative, improvised stair tobogganing, the staircase was good for hours of amusement.

As a young adult, I spent my nights during my first semester in college in a dormitory room on the 26th floor. Elevators, of course, serviced the dorm floors. It was the periodic fire drill that started to change my attitude about climbing up and down stairs. I do not recommend going up and down 26 flights of stairs at 6:00 A.M. as a pleasant way to start a day.

As I run out of time being age forty something, eliminating trips up and down the stairs has become a fantastic mental exercise to eliminate physical exercise. Betsey has perfected the art of reduced stair climbing by using the stop watch method. She will say to the younger children, “ Will you run up stairs and get my blue sweater? I bet you can’t do it in under one minute. . . I’ll time you - GO!”

Doug

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