Episode 383: What a wardrobe design app taught me about small business
In this episode, Fiona Discover how a wardrobe management app can unexpectedly provide lessons. She shares her journey towards financial wellness and sustainable fashion choices. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
Exploration of the host's financial wellness journey
Focus on future wealth creation
Fiona’s background in fashion
Introduction to wardrobe management apps
Encouragement to assess physical and digital assets
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Welcome to episode 383 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today it is a quick tip episode and I know from hearing from many people that you love to binge these because they are so quick and you could learn a lot in like 10 minutes or less. Today I'm going to just be less than 10 minutes. You're going to get gold for the next few minutes and then you can implement it. This is the thing with these tip episodes. They're no good if you just read and don't do anything. Read and then stop reading to podcasts for a minute and go and implement if you can straightaway. If not, make sure you write a note, put it in your app, and do whatever to come back and action what you are learning today.
Before we get stuck into that, I want to remind you that group coaching is officially open and it will start next month. If you're reading this in real-time if you're reading this at another time, you can always sign up for the waitlist, you can find all the information at mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. The interviews are already underway for the March intake for group coaching. If you are keen, get onto it. Again, the URL for all of the information and to sign up is at mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. If you're reading this at another time of the year, feel free to go to that URL and sign up for the waitlist. You're first to know when we come back out with another round of group coaching. The other thing I wanted to of course acknowledge is the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which I record this podcast and do group coaching and all the other things that we offer. That is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
If you have been reading this podcast this year, firstly, thank you so much and especially for people who are coming back. Thank you. I know there are a million podcasts out there, I think there are 2.8 million now, and it's just such a blessing to have you joining me and I appreciate it. If you've been reading this year, you'll know that I'm on a bit of a financial wellness journey now. I have always been into finances. Money is a huge part of what I work with clients on and looking at all of this. This year I want to just get smarter with my money. I make good money from my business. I'm very lucky. It's consistently grown every single year and that's amazing. But I could be doing more in terms of future wealth creation outside of just the business.
What I'm trying to do is look particularly at my personal life as well, where things are being spent that are not necessary. Then taking that money and that surplus and putting it into shares and other investments. One of the things that I've been looking at is my wardrobe. Now, I grew up loving clothes. I've always loved clothes. I also worked in fashion for a long time in head offices, fashion companies, and retailers, also worked as a magazine editor at fashion magazines. I have written about fashion and lifestyle for 22 years for sorts of publications from Nylon and Cool Hunting and Refinery29 in the US through to Flux, Frankie, Yen, Rush and all of this stuff. Plus even the Sunday lift out in the United Arab Emirates National Newspaper Lift outs in the UK, in Australia. I have an interest in style and fashion that has waned in different parts of my life, but it's something that I'm interested in.
It kind of goes without saying or maybe it doesn't that I have quite a substantial wardrobe. Now I do declutter on a regular, but I also love op shops. I love vintage stores. I love having a thrift. You find the best stuff. This year I am trying to get about 80% of anything that I buy has to be secondhand. That's also to do with you look at the landfill that comes from the fashion industry and it is disgusting. I'm trying to make sure that the 20% of clothing that I may buy new is from ethical brands. Then 80% is from recycled clothing. I've always been an op shopper.
I love an op shop. I am a thrifting queen. But one of the things that I realized is that particularly moving into this new house about six months ago now, a lot of my clothing is still in storage.
I have boxes of clothing, which is in the garage. I have got rid of a lot I have to say. But because I bought things, we used to live in London a long time ago, I bought super cool stuff in London. I'll pick things up here and there. My size has changed over the years. It's gone up, it's gone down. There'll be a bunch of clothes that it's almost like I don't want to get rid of them, but I also don't necessarily wear them. Sometimes I don't wear them because they just don't fit. Or maybe they don't go with the lifestyle that I have at the moment or more often I don't wear them because I'm not able to see them all the time. Now, I'm not saying excessive amounts at all, but more than fits into my wardrobe currently. One of the things that I want to do is shop my wardrobe.
Now this is not a new idea. If you google Shop My Wardrobe or you look on YouTube, there's like a gazillion people out there that do the whole Shop My Wardrobe. There's even Shop My Wardrobe Consultants. I know my friend in Amsterdam had an amazing experience with a shop, my wardrobe consultant. You come to your house and basically, they go through your wardrobe and give you all this advice. One of the things I want to do is shop my own wardrobe. Now I have so many good things and I end up kind of wearing the same stuff all the time. One of the things that I'm looking at and that I've started using is an app called Whering. We'll link to it in the show notes. I've also looked at the app INDYX. I'm about to tell you though, you'll probably be like, “How does this have anything to do with business?”
Believe me, it does. Those apps Whering an INDYX allow you to take photos or enable you to take photos of all the stuff in your wardrobe. Now that does take a bit of time, but take photos, all the stuff in your wardrobe, and then it turns into, if you remember Clueless, if anyone watched that, that was like my all-time favourite film when I was growing up 1995, the best. But in Clueless, she has this digital back then in the nineties kind of wardrobe thing that matches clothing together and gives her an idea of what to wear that day. Now these apps enable you to do these with your wardrobe, which is amazing. Yes, it takes time to photograph your wardrobe, but once you've photographed it, you put it together and then every day you can go in there and be like, “Okay, I'm going to wear this top.”
Then you can slide like literally flick through as you would on an e-commerce site, all the stuff that you own, like skirts and pants and shorts, whatever it is, and then figure out what your outfit's going to look like. It also on the wearing app gives you analytics for how often you wear the same stuff. Now, you'd have to be putting your data in every single day. I'm not doing that. I'm not that much of a fashionist, but I guess you could. But what I'm trying to see is like if I'm kind of wearing the same stuff all the time, then that's the stuff that I'm comfortable in that suits me, et cetera. But also like, let's look at what else is in there. What does this have to do with business? Besides being like financially smart and I think helping the planet a little bit in a very tiny way, but it all adds up.
One of the things that it made me think about is how many apps we all have in business, how many subscriptions we have, how much stuff we have, just in terms of even like I'm a big stationary fiend, so I have a million notebooks. I don't need to buy any new notebooks. But I have books, I have highlighters, I have all these things. I also have a bunch of little technical things. I say a couple of lapel mics because I was like, “I'm going to go and do all of this podcasting just around the place that I need a better lapel mic.” We're not using these things. It's kind of like taking an audit, a stock check of your apps for your business, but also for the tangible things that you have in your office or your studio, wherever it is.
Looking at, “Okay, how often am I using this? Are there things that potentially you could sell or that could encourage you to do something more?” For example, that lapel mic, if I start using that, then maybe I'll make a few more videos and maybe that'll encourage me to like get going a bit more with certain social media or to start a YouTube channel or whatever it is. That app for the wardrobe has been eye-opening to be like, “Why don't I ever wear that? That would look good.” It's given me this sort of excitement about my wardrobe and even more fun at getting dressed and deciding what to wear and wearing things I haven't worn for like 10 years, but I'm loving it. It's then in turn made me feel a bit more excited just in the day.
I know that sounds silly, but you do express who you are through what you wear a lot of the time. I know, and I'm sure this goes for a lot of people reading, I'm a mom, I've got young kids, I don't get much sleep, I work from home. It is very easy to just wear something that's comfortable. I'm all about comfort either way. But to wear something and kind of get stuck in a rut in terms of fashion. I think the same can be said with business. We can get kind of stuck using the same apps even though we're paying for other things or paying for subscriptions or we can get stuck doing things the same way. For example, me recording my podcast at my desk as opposed to, I don't know, going for a walk and recording my podcast on the fly using a lapel mic because I'd sort of forgotten about these things that I've put away.
Likewise, if you've got all this beautiful stationary bring it out, maybe have like a little stationary swap with some other business friends or think about other things you're trying to achieve this year in your business and like set up one of your beautiful notebooks for that and keep it on your desk and keep it where you can see it and check in with yourself through that notebook of, “What am I doing?” Maybe you want to journal more. It's like, “Okay, but you know, I don't have all the resources.” Then you look through your cupboard and you're like, “I've got these five beautiful notebooks.” I could start journaling tomorrow in this nice way that's going to relax you and help overall with your mental health. It's really about doing an audit of the physical things that you have. If you don't remember what you have, you could go through your bank statements and look at kind of the stuff that you've bought.
You could have a decluttering session in your office or your studio and pull everything out and be like, “What can I sell? What am I going to keep? What do I need to start using more to be able to get some of the return on investment from it?” Then in terms of digital stuff, you can either just, I mean if it goes through kind of your Apple account, you can look at all the apps that you have a subscription to. You can also just look at all the apps that you have bought in the last 12 months, whether they're not bought, but like downloaded if they're free. You also want to look at your direct debits in your business bank account and see all of the subscriptions that you're currently paying for if they are outside of kind of the app store and assess, “What am I using?”
Because too often we see things, I'm so guilty of this as well. You see things and you're like, “I'm going to buy that. I'm going to buy that.” You might see that somebody's posted something. I mean, when I posted about my walking pad, I had 17 people say, “Oh my God, I'm buying this today.” I wish I'd given an Amazon affiliate link or something because maybe I would've gotten some return on investment from that post. But the point is, we are constantly bombarded with new things that you can find your business, new productivity apps and new productivity tools. Sometimes it's just like the wardrobe going back and assessing, “What I already have because maybe I've got some really good stuff here that I'm not using.” If you aren't using stuff, then really decide whether you want to sell it or stop paying for a subscription or start using it again.
That is it for today's podcast episode. We will link to Whering and INDYX, which are the apps that I'm using to have a bit more fun with my wardrobe in the show notes and anything else that we've mentioned. The show notes for this episode can be found at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/383. Thank you so much for reading and again, if you are keen to get into group coaching, please go and apply now because we are closing very soon. Take care. See you next time. Bye.
