As I write this I’m gazing (lovingly) out the picture window at my husband on a ladder, cleaning out the gutters. For those of you who live in condos or climates where trees don’t shed, this is an annual fall sport for men. They do it because they ARE men and it makes absolutely no sense to them to pay someone a couple of hundred bucks when they have a ladder, a pair of work gloves, and about an hour and a half between their workouts and the first college football game which starts Saturday at noon.

Actually, I’m grateful my husband is out there handling this dirty job because I sure as heck don’t want it and it must be done. Plus the money saved can go to a nice dinner out. If you don’t clear out the leaves and debris, rainwater will fill up the gutters. Overflow will rot the windows, doors, even the foundation of your house.

Cleaning the gutters is a great metaphor for what most business leaders need to do this time of year. What’s sitting in the gutters that could clog up the flow? Even damage the foundation? Are there appointments on your personal calendar that are bunging up your priorities? Is the team jammed up with a myriad of large and small projects that are choking their days? Are you past deadine and over budget on initiatives that simply need to get done, one way or another, by the end of the year?

Now’s the time to get out the work gloves, dig into the mess, and clear away the debris. It’s your job to get in there and see what’s threatening to obstruct your business. Don’t allow the mess to choke your progress. Get up on the ladder where you have a birds eye view, and get that stuff out of the way.