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Angie Stegall

Angie Stegall

Executive Wayfinder

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July 6, 2009 by Angie Stegall 5 Comments

Quit buying cheap crap

Because I am in and out of small business offices in people’s homes each week, I see a huge and wide variety of “stuff.”

Cruise through any national retail chain and you’ll see a huge variety of “stuff.”

Heck, take a walk through your local grocery store and you’ll be overwhelmed with choices for “stuff” — and I use the word STUFF rather than FOOD because in reality, more than half of what’s in those stores isn’t really food. Or isn’t REAL FOOD, to be very specific.

Why am I on this soapbox today?

I guess it’s because I received a panicked call from a client recently. She had driven out west to clean out her ailing father’s house. Her 10 pm call was filled with frustration and anxiety mostly because of the amount of STUFF in her father’s house. Stuff that he hadn’t looked at in over a year, because he was living in a senior home near my client.

And her anxiety-filled call wasn’t about starving children, her ailing father, or fears of imminent physical harm. These weren’t the things stressing her out. STUFF was!

And without even stepping foot in that house, I bet you there were probably 20 items in that structure really worth worrying about – that had real monetary or sentimental value. The rest of it? Cheap crap that will end up in our landfills, polluting our soil and water. And I won’t go into the labor that created all that cheap crap, or the fossil fuels burned to ship that cheap crap over to America.

Here’s a great exercise for you to go through when you are overwhelmed with stuff in your office or in your home.

Pretend you have to leave your house and can never come back.
You can leave with your car and perhaps a trailer.
You can take enough clothes to fill one suitcase. Enough toiletries for your overnight bag. And your pets.
And you can only take two other things from each room. Big or small, it doesn’t matter. But ONLY two things.

You will get very clear very quickly about what matters to you.

In this country, we have so many options, so many choices, and consistently exercise that power of choice by buying STUFF. Stuff we don’t need, stuff that serves a very shallow purpose, and stuff that will, again, end up in our land fills, polluting our soils and water, and perpetuating the myth that cheap crap is easy to get and has no consequence for the future (because it seemingly has so little consequence for our wallet).

I challenge you to see how long you can use a pen before buying more. I challenge you to run out of paper towels, envelopes and toilet paper before you “buy more.” I challenge you to always buy recycled – even if it costs a little more. I challenge you to buy REAL food that will nourish your body, rather than just shoveling in empty calories while driving down the interstate.

I challenge you to think before you buy – to ask yourself: whose labor make this? was it under good working conditions and a fair wage? did the production of this thing pollute, spoil, or otherwise degrade our precious natural resources? if I died, would ANYONE want this (and would I want a house full of this stuff and force my children or family to deal with it later?)

I understand that spending money keeps the economy chugging along. All I’m asking is that you spend your dollars wisely – buy the best you can afford, buy only what you need, be sure your purchase is making the best use of our precious natural resources, and don’t succumb to the easy seduction of buying cheap crap.

Filed Under: Organization

July 3, 2009 by Angie Stegall Leave a Comment

Organizing is really about listening

I had the greatest conversation the other day with Kevin Decker, a life and relationship coach.

We were talking about an issue I was having regarding my business. He asked me, “What are you good at?” and I told him, “I can organize anything.”

He launched into a story about how I would be breathless if I walked into his office. He explained that his system was essentially based on piles – piles here, piles there, piles, piles everywhere. However, he was very clear that the piles worked for him – he could find what he needed in any of the piles at any time.

I said to him, “Well, if you hired me to organize your office and told me the piles worked for you, I wouldn’t necessarily ask you to change that system.”

And he got very quiet.

And said, “You are the first organizer I’ve ever talked to who hasn’t immediately told me I needed to get rid of the piles.”

That’s INCREDIBLE to me.

If I’m listening to my clients – actively and objectively, without preconceived ideas or notions of ‘how it should be done’ then I’m clearly hearing what he’s saying – MY SYSTEM WORKS.

However, if he hired me, he’d also be saying: “Something isn’t working.” It would become my job to figure out that reason and create a solution that works for him.

My clients deserve to have unique systems that work for THEM. If the system doesn’t work, then they won’t keep up with it, and it won’t give them the results they need and expect.

Of course, there are some basics guidelines to follow:

1. Keep like with like. This works with things, but can also work when creating systems, processes, and organizing people or groups.

2. Resist the urge to “stuff” things somewhere. This isn’t organizing or handling the thing – it’s procrastinating. When we “stuff,” we are really saying, “I don’t have time to think about this right now – to create a home, system, process, or procedure for this.” It works with emotions, too, but that’s for a different conversation. 😉

Let’s use Kevin’s example above to test these guidelines. First, he doesn’t stuff things away – he has created piles (lots and lots of piles) but they have an order to them – a system of like with like. His piles could have labels – bills, projects, book ideas, clients, etc. But there is a system and an order to the piles. There’s no randomness about it.

By using some foundation rules, but paying attention to the details of things or people you are working with, you can effectively create a system that your client will love – and continue to use. Pay attention to these guidelines, listen to your client, and the rest of organizational process begins to flow.

Filed Under: Business Systems & Processes, Organization, Time Management & Productivity

June 29, 2009 by Angie Stegall Leave a Comment

I need it – I can’t find it!

It’s a common problem for small business owners – they need some critical piece of paper for a report, insurance, or bank form. And they can’t find that paper.

Has this happened to you?

Or how about this? When your business first started, pulling invoices together was easy.  A few pieces of paper here, gather information from there, add stuff up by hand, and *poof* — invoices are ready to go. Now, though, as you’ve grown, and added staff or subcontractors, you’re finding that invoicing is taking entire days to get done.

I’ll be honest – the solution isn’t sexy.  But, it does work.

What to do? Create systems, processes, and routines.

Everything has a home, each inquiry has a process, and everything has a system.

Want to know more? Contact Angie Mattson at (704) 552-8082 or via email: angie@mattsonbusiness.com

Filed Under: Business Systems & Processes, Organization, Uncategorized

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