My Covid-19 spring cleaning list
The coronavirus pandemic creates an opportunity for many brands to reassess their business strategies, and they should take it because it won’t come again.
By Mark Ritson
I’ve had a corn on my right foot for about a year. It’s an evil little bastard. You’d hardly notice it, nestled there in the middle of my foot. But, on a regular basis, it gets angry and starts to cause me immense pain. It’s like having a little gremlin hanging onto your ankle and occasionally stabbing you in the base of your foot with a knitting needle.
I’ve wanted to blitz the fucker for months. I’ve spent hours looking at ‘foot porn’ videos on YouTube, in which a young chiropodist whips out a scalpel and dispatches a humongous corn the size of a squirrel in three minutes. I’ve ordered enough corn plasters and foot scalpels to service a Roman legion. And I’ve bought half a dozen pumice stones and hung them, like a podiatric rosary, around my showerhead.
But I’ve done precisely nothing to my corn with any of these things. The problem is time. And travel. And work. And all the other assorted bullshit that stops busy people like me, or you, doing anything that involves a few minutes of daily attention. I’ve had too much to do and too many different places to be in. So, the little gremlin with the knitting needle has continued to enjoy himself down there.
And then came Covid-19. Suddenly there was no travel. I started tidying my home office. Gardening. Fixing gutters. I had time. And very quickly I turned my attention downwards to my corny little friend. I researched and then ordered really good corn plasters. I applied them scrupulously for 10 days straight.
And on the 11th day, as my usual evening benediction was taking place, I removed the plaster and, with it, every last speck of the corn too. I am corn-free and have the soles of a 15-year-old choirboy to prove it.
It looks sensational. Really. If you saw my right foot you’d want to spontaneously kiss it. And it’s all thanks to coronavirus and the time it gave me to focus on fixes. Without it, I would still be limping around with my foot gremlin, scaring small children with occasional profanities.
And the same is true, right now, of businesses. Make no mistake, this is a tough time for almost everyone. But there are three valuable upsides to the coronavirus lockdown.
