Ann Cueva, CEO of Custom Organizing, Inc. helps clients take control of their paperwork and organizational needs. Tune in as she discusses how to plan your grieving process and offer peace of mind to your loved ones.
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Planning Your Grieving Process With Ann Cueva
Beautiful day, beautiful souls. This is The Charla Anderson Show, a collector and connector of fascinating people. Everyone is fascinating, especially YOU! I am happy and grateful that you join me with the most incredible Ann Cueva, one of my favorite people in the world. We’re going to be talking about making a plan while you can and Grief Without Chaos, her book.
Before that, we’re going to take a little mini vacation or a little breathing exercise. It’s 22 seconds to settle down and be. We’re going to breathe in calm for 7 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, and breathe out gratitude for 11 seconds. Let’s do that. Let’s get grounded here. Are you ready, everybody? Breathe in for 7 seconds calm. Here we go. Hold and then release. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Take time to be still and know. Listen to yourself. Listen to the spirit. Listen to the still small voice. That’s what we can do whenever we are feeling stressed or whatever. This is the time to realize that that’s an important thing.
It’s July 3rd, 2024. The Day before the 4th of July. I’m a little patriotic. I love it. I love my country. I’m also traveling to my sister’s house, trying to take care of her over here in Tennessee. She has a doggy, so we’ll see how that works. We’re on Win Win Women TV, an amazing platform directed to women by women and men as well, not as hosts but as guests. It’s primarily for women to have a platform. That’s an amazing platform for all of us. Ann is another show host. What’s the name of your show, Ann? We’ll then get to you.
It’s called Prep Talk Custom Organizing.
Looking Back
Thank you for being my guest. We’re going to share this all over the globe. We’re all over the place. This is our third time to have a try of this show. The third time is a charm. I’m grateful that it is finally coming together. Tell people who you are and a little bit about you.
Thank you for having me. It’s always to do fun things with you. My name is Ann Cueva. I live in Clearwater, Florida. I have been a professional organizer for the past 30-plus years. I started out doing kitchens, homes, and closets, and getting all that organized. I loved doing it. I had an aunt one day who said to me, “You’re always helping people do this. Why don’t you find a way to get paid for it?” I remember thinking, “Who would pay me to do this?” Back then, we didn’t even know what a professional organizer was. I thought, “How do I get started?”
There was a Woman’s Day magazine that had come in the mail. I had left my friend Janine’s house. We had organized her kitchen. In the magazine was another organizer. The name of her store was Cross It Off Your List in New York City. I got her name and number out of the magazine and I called her. I said, “How did you start your business? What do you call yourself?” She said, “A professional organizer.” That’s how I started my organizing business. At the time, it was called the National Association of Professional Organizers that I joined. I found out there was a whole nother little world out there of people who thought like I did. It was very exciting.
As everyone knows how the organizing industry has grown over the past 30 years has been amazing. As we get busier, our lives get crazier. It’s important. I found about seven years into my business that paperwork is something that everyone struggles with. It’s coming at us constantly. You have to make decisions about paperwork. Some people even throw their finances in with their paperwork and it becomes a big mess. Who wants to work with all that? It’s not fun.
I always tell the funny story that I was working with a client in her kitchen. We were standing up on the kitchen counter. We were working on the pot shelves that were above in her kitchen. All at once, she said, “What time is it?” I looked at my watch and said, “It’s 4:15.” She said, “I got to go.” I said, “Should I go?” I didn’t know what was happening. She said, “If I don’t pay my power bill by 5:00 today, they’re going to shut off my power.” I’m like, “Okay.” She flew out the door.
The way my brain works is when I see things like that happen, I’m like, “How can I fix that? How can we not let that happen anymore?” The woman had the means to pay the bill. It was just that she didn’t pay it then. That led me down the path of working with people with their paperwork. It’s so life-changing and so helpful. My family is mainly nurses and doctors. I did not get that gene at all. I can give someone a Band-Aid and tell them that’s the extent of my nursing degree. If there’s blood or liquid stuff involved, don’t have me in there.
I felt good. When I could work with someone with their paperwork, bring order into their life and some peace, and remove the craziness from their life, it was a good feeling that I had helped them mentally, psychologically, and things like that. That’s what drove me to keep doing my business. I love what I do. It has been so helpful. Through the years, I’ve worked with corporations and companies. There was a time pre-COVID when they were sending people home to work, and they would send them home with everything they needed except how to get organized. I did a lot of work with companies that worked remotely and things like that.
It’s very rewarding to me to be able to know that when you need something, panic doesn’t have to set in, “Where do I find that paper?” It’s a matter of setting up simple systems that work for you. I tell people, “When you’re trying to get organized, throw perfectionism out the window.” I’m a perfectionist. The first three days I had my business, I said, “This is ridiculous.” I was trying to make it look like everything was all good. First of all, that’s not me because I’m an open book. I’ll tell anybody anything that they want to know if I think it will help them.
Set up simple systems that work for you so you do not have to panic when doing something. Share on XPeople associate the word organized with being perfect, and that’s far from the truth. As long as you have a system that works for you, when you go to find things, you can find them. If your time management is working for you by having a paper calendar versus a digital calendar on your phone, go what’s right for you. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing. It’s all ways that you can bring peace into your life and get rid of the chaos.
Working with paperwork for all these years, I do believe that’s the foundation of getting organized. Everything is digital, but when we used to get all of our paper bills, people would lay in bed at night and go, “Did I pay the power bill? Where is the power bill? Did I write on the back of that envelope and then throw that envelope away?” It was a vicious cycle in that people went in with paperwork.
I found that by honing in on that and saying, “When you get your bills, have a place for them.” The financial bills and the financial paperwork are completely separate entities from paperwork in general. That makes it easier for people. They don’t have all their bills in with all their other paperwork. That’s a good tip. If you were that way, separate the two right away. That will be a good start for you.
Informational Paperwork
I was talking about informational paperwork. Before the internet, I wrote some stuff for kids as advice. I was like, “Separate things that come into ‘I’m going to get arrested if I don’t do this,’ and everything else.” Information is what piles up, the magazines, the catalogs, the newspapers, the inserts, and all of those things. If it has an action step like a date due, that goes in one pile.
When I was newlywed, we had a room where we got rolled-up newspapers. It got to where we would open the door of the spare room and throw it like, “We’ll read this later.” When we had a son on the way and we had to clean that out for the baby’s room, we were like, “We need a bulldozer to come in.” We wanted to read all of it but we never did.
There’s a secret that I have discovered for me, but not that I do it. The reason people don’t do better at organizing and are going back and getting things done is that everything in that room, everything in the attic, or everything that needs to be gone through is looking backward. I’m always looking at the next thing. I want to do the next thing. To stop and have to deal with the past, which it’s a weight, it’s this piece of your life that you know eventually has to be dealt with, it’s not conscious most of the time, but it’s baggage.
It’s always in the back of my mind like, “I have to do that. I know I need to do that.” We keep putting it off. I always say when you find yourself saying, “I’ll do that later,” later never comes because there’s always going to be something else that will fill that time. By the time you do get to what you want to do, who wants to do it anyway? People will say, “I will clean my house before I have to go in and do what I need to do,” but they hate cleaning. People will have a tendency to put it off.
The other trigger words for me are “For now.” It’s like, “I’m going to put it here just for now.” It’s still on the refrigerator five years later. It’s like, “I’ll get this,” and I don’t move it. That was a huge piece of my marriage. I’m like, “Don’t ever say just for now. You’re lying to yourself and to me.”
Getting Organized
A lot of people will say to me, “I want to be organized. I’ve tried it before and it didn’t work.” There are two rules of thought there. Number one, I tell people, “If you want to begin to get organized, start with the number one thing that’s driving you crazy. It can be something very little or big.” If you go, “I have everything that drives me crazy,” then take one. Take five Post-it notes or index cards, write your five things, turn them over where you can’t read them, and then pick one and start with that. You can also prioritize that because a lot of times, if you see visually what your five things are, you can go, “That’s not it.” It will help you prioritize.
The thing is to start with whatever is driving you crazy about your number one thing. Once you find a little fix for that and it feels so good when you don’t have that little irritating thing happen anymore, the peace starts. It’s like, “I get this.” That’s why I tell people that when they take care of one thing that’s bothering them, and whatever it was that drove them crazy, all at once, it’s like, “That felt so good.”
That’s the moment you want to capture and think, “If I keep doing this like this, then I can eventually get all this out of my life.” It works. Do what works for you. If you look at other people who are doing something and they go, “I got organized. I did this. I bought up my pretty little planner,” or “I used my phone and all this for this,” if that doesn’t work for you, make up your own system, but have a system that works for you.
Getting that system is priceless. We think it’s hard to get a system too. I’m as guilty as anybody. There’s so much that I want to get through and go through. What I know is that, for instance, when one room is done, I will go and bask in that room. I will sit there. Every time I walk by, I go, “Oh.” You remember the FlyLady. If your place is a mess but your sink is clean or empty, you can bask and celebrate small wins like this.
That’s right. That’s very true. FlyLady has so many good things, and they’re simple. We try to make it harder than it is. Keep it simple.
We complicate it, don’t we?
Big time. We think, “I know it needs to be this.” We throw perfectionism in there. We don’t need to do that. Pat yourself on the back for what you’ve done for you.
Grief Without Chaos
I know. I’m always onto the next thing. I don’t take time to capture the win. Celebrate it. Not party, but enjoy the moment and take time to enjoy it. You have a book called Grief Without Chaos. It’s a workbook about making a plan while you can. This is what we want to focus on because I’m living proof that it’s important. Have I done it? No. Do I need to do it? Yes, I do.
For Christmas last year, I gave my sisters, all three of them, this book. We’re going to start your little four-week course on that. We did that in January. We started in the first and second week of January. My younger sister, Marsha, was on the call. She did some steps towards doing your homework, which is very cool. I’m in her house, so we’re going to circle back to that in a minute.
My oldest sister, Shirley, had a last-minute thing but was very interested in trying to do this. She has people anyway. She had a successful business. She had people that knew most of where things were for her. In the second week of January, she died. This Grief Without Chaos is the idea of being organized so that your family doesn’t have to scramble and deal with the hardest time in their lives to have to find things that are hard to find. You have written a workbook to help people go through that and simplify.
Workshops
Moving on, here I am a little bit later with Marsha, my youngest sister, who was on the calls. She had an aneurysm on Mother’s Day weekend a couple of months ago. I’m in her house. She’s a walking and talking miracle because how many people don’t survive those? We’re in this conversation ironically or not, “Ann is my guest this week.” We’ll talk about this again. Marsha was going to try and be a cameo guest because it’s her home. She had to go to the doctor and isn’t here. Isn’t it interesting that here we start this process and it’s in my face? We have to do something and make it simpler and easier for our family. The first thing is probably passwords, right?
Yes. I’ll tell you why I even wrote the book. Back in 2003, my seventeen-year-old son, David, died suddenly. We have no idea to this day what it was. We ended up donating his heart to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He’s still in a gene pool of studies. They told me one day, they may call me and to never give up hope. It was a perfectly healthy heart that just stopped.
We know it was the electrical part of the heart because he was in the same room with my husband, John, at the time. He didn’t gasp for air. He didn’t suffer. He was talking one minute and a minute later, he was gone. Getting that call, I was over in Orlando at the time with my mother and sister celebrating my sister’s birthday. There I was in Disney World, the happiest place on earth, and had to get that call that I needed to come home right away because something had happened to David.
I went to the emergency room that night. We got there about 2:00 in the morning. Anyone who has gone through that, you know how your mind is. I remember there was one of the nurses there. She came up to me. We’d been there for about an hour and a half. They wanted to do tests on him, trying to find what the cause of death was.
I remember the nurse handing me a packet over his body. He was lying on the gurney. This nurse hands me a packet and says, “You’re going to need to start planning his funeral tomorrow.” At that point, it’s like in the movies. Everything stopped. I could see her lips moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. That always stands out as such a horrible memory for me.
He was seventeen. If he had been eighteen, it would have been a whole nother story and even more chaotic. I was organized and had most of my kids’ stuff in order. We had to pull things. The funeral home gave us a list of things we needed to bring and all that stuff. My sister went and got the things. When she went back to the funeral home, the funeral director said, “In all my years of doing this, I’ve never had anybody bring me the things I asked on the first call.” She said, “My sister is an organizer. She had all this in place.”
In 2014, my mother passed away, and three months later, my mother-in-law passed away. We had these two deaths back to back. My mother had lung cancer, so we knew that was happening. After David died, we got everything. We bought the niches that our bodies would be placed in. We started a plan. Let me tell you. Funerals, caskets, and everything else are not cheap. On top of grieving, you get hit with all these other things that come along with it. It’s horrible.
My mom died and we had everything pretty much done. She had a will. We knew what was going to happen after she died. My mother-in-law had a TIA and fell down the steps outside her house. She hit her head. Two days later, she was in a coma, and five days later, she passed away. For years, she always told everyone that she kept the will in the third drawer in the living room in the buffet in there. None of us ever checked. We never looked. When she died, we all went there to look to see where the will was. Guess what? No will.
To make a long story short, about two months and $8,000 later with attorney’s fees, trying to get all the information that we needed, we found it. At that point, being an organizer, I thought, “All of this was chaotic and didn’t need to be.” My definition of being organized is being in control of what you can be in control of. Every one of the things those people asked us for, we could have been in control of those.
I decided, “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” so I came up with this workbook. It’s the basics. It’s not a long, drawn-out workbook that you need, but it’s what you would need, the vital information, should there be an emergency. I don’t relate this just to death. This is not just a book for dying or when you die. If something happens to you and you can’t speak, this book speaks for you because you write your wishes in there.
Let’s say you had a stroke and couldn’t speak and people wanted to know all this stuff. That’s so frustrating not only for your relatives, your loved ones, or your caregiver, but for you. You’re trying to talk. You’re trying to say these things. It has all your sections for banking information, who to call if something happens to you, and your passwords. The number one tip you can take away from this is to make sure somebody else has the password to your computer and your phone. Those two things, if you can get that done, you’re way ahead of the game.
I hear story after story of things that happened. A friend of mine shared a story with me. The husband went to bed with his wife and they woke up the next morning and she had passed. He was trying to call her sister, but he couldn’t get into her phone because, at the time, you used your fingerprint. The EMT that was there said, “She’s here. Let’s go ahead and put her finger on it.” That’s how they got into her phone.
My goal as an organizer is I want to remove the chaos from the grief because it’d be so much easier if that woman had said to me, “You’re going to go home and need to plan his funeral,” with that booklet that she handed me. My vision was to make that vision better to go, “Here’s a book that I put together. If you will break it down and get the vital information in there.” It’s so important.
The workshops that Charlotte was talking about were there. First four Mondays of every month from 7:00 to 8:00, I have a workshop via Zoom where I break the book up into sections. You have a whole week to complete a section, but by the end of the month, you have the majority of the book completed. For the part that isn’t completed, you go to an attorney and get your will or update your will.
The things that we have discovered even in the workshops that people don’t think of or the stories that they share, we don’t think about these things that are going to happen. Some people say, “I don’t care if I die or something happens to me. I won’t know about it so I don’t have to worry about it.” Someone has to worry about it, and it’s going to be your loved ones. In your example here, at least your sister, Shirley, had someone who took care of those things that you were able to get the information from.
Her daughters. It helped a lot that they had the person, her assistant, and her friend. Marsha had started all this, but she was in the hospital for six weeks. She’s doing great and on the road to probably a 100% recovery or very close.
That is a miracle.
She had surgeries and stuff. She’s doing amazing, but in that first week or so, we didn’t know. We never know. It’s not in our hands. That’s why it’s important that we consider those that will be left behind. It’s not about me being gone. I’m dancing with angels. I’m good, but those left behind have to deal with not just grief. Sadly, the systems aren’t very helpful. The systems out there, the death systems, or whatever you want to call it are not on your side.
It doesn’t move quickly. It does not move.
In this litigious society, there’s so much that we don’t have access to or whatever. I’m grateful that you were able to join me. We did a great show in November but it didn’t get recorded. Speaking of all this, you said you were going to come on a month ago. There are a lot of other resources. My daughter gave me Mom, Tell Me Your Story. I haven’t done it.
That’s the thing. That is why I started the workshops. As I would work with my clients, I would see they had books like this, but no one was filling them out. That’s why I started the workshops. A lot of times, people don’t want to do it because they’re like, “If I talk about it, I’m going to die or someone’s going to die.” That was me. I would never talk about death because sure enough, if I talk about it, I know someone’s going to die. We weren’t talking about death and it happened. That’s why I try to tell people.
One of the beautiful things that I love about it is when people start filling out this workbook or any workbook that you want to put your vital information in, there’s this peace that comes over you. You feel so much better. You feel in control. It’s something we know we should take care of, but it’s like organizing. We don’t want to do it or we’ll do it later. We never know what a day will bring.
The burden is lifted. That peace of mind is critical. Honestly, I can speak to the other side of that. We started talking about it and my sister died. Do I blame this for that? No, I don’t. There might be people that would. I’m on the opposite side of that. We were talking about it. We did give the book. We did have a conversation about it. Marsha was filling hers out. We put all that on hold and tried to revisit it. I don’t believe that’s the reason that those things happen. It happened. It’s interesting timing. I’ve thought about that. I was like, “I was talking about it and it caused her to die? No.”
That’s a good point. I’m glad you brought that up. Pat yourself on the back, all three of you, Shirley, Marsha, and yourself, for starting. You were on the right path of getting it to help your loved ones because it’s a love letter that you can give to others.
My other sister, Joyce, seems to have already done most of this stuff. That’s why they weren’t interested in joining in the call. They felt confident that they had most of that covered. I certainly hope so for them. We’re all out here trying to get along, trying to do the best we can, and trying to bless people as best we can and things happen.
Talking About Death
That’s right. It’s so important to have a conversation with your family. They have these parties that have started over in England. It’s called Let’s Have a Party or something. It’s where you get the family together and you talk about what are your wishes if something happened to you. They don’t even so much use the word death, but they say, “If something happened to you.” I like that. They said some people don’t want to do it. By the end of it, it turns into a party because they’re like, “Will you leave that to me? I’ve always loved that chair you have.” Someone else is like, “I wanted that chair.” They get all that stuff straightened out.
Ahead of time.
That’s what this book is about. It’s not after something happens. It’s before. It opens up a lot of information for people. They’ll say, “I have a will. I look back at my will and it was done 15 or 20 years ago. The people that I was leaving things to or what I wanted aren’t even around anymore.”
Last Will
I have a question about that. I made a will when my children were young with a man I was married to. I’m not certain that it has ever been updated. Is it still effective?
If that’s your only will.
That’s an important question because if it has never been subsequently done, would that mean his three kids could come to that?
Yes, it could. There was a family. This is horrible, but it happened. The man had remarried. At the funeral, the ex-wife came in. There were no other wills. The man didn’t have a will except when he was married to his first wife, and it said the house would go to her. They had it all checked out legally. They had all the attorneys look at everything. The ex-wife got the house. The current wife whom he had been married to for 3 or 4 years had to move out. It was all because of that will. It was a legal contract. I’m not an attorney so I can’t tell you what to do or say what to do, but you bring up a very good point.
You have to have a subsequent document that is legal and that no one voids that one somehow.
As long as it’s a notarized updated date, it would have a higher value than that one. That’s what they would go with. That’s a good point. Talking about something happening to us, death, and things like that makes you appreciate your life even more because you’re thinking, “I’m worried about this. I’m worried about that. This is going to go to so-and-so.”
When you focus and start looking at it, if something happens inside you, everyone without fail has always said, “I’m so glad I did this. I feel so much better.” It’s taking care of that. We were talking about all the little stuff that’s going around in our minds in the back. We’re taking care of something that we should be taking care of.
It’s peaceful. It gives that sense of accomplishment. It was Ann Landers or Dear Abby years ago. It was probably Ann Landers. There was a story about a lady that had done that. I don’t know if she was single. She had planned everything out. She had everything planned down to the dress she was going to wear in the casket. All of that was taken care of. All the details for her end of life were organized and taken care of, which gave her the freedom to go out and live her life.
She didn’t have to stress over all those details. What a freedom for her family and for her to be able to be like, “I might live twenty more years, but I’m going to have a great time doing it. All this stuff is in the works.” If that dress doesn’t fit anymore, you can at least change one little piece here and there and not be overwhelmed. I was probably in my 20s or 30s when I read that. I was like, “I want to be like that.” I’m still not and I’m 70.
You have several books. You’re working. You started the class. I told you and your sister that you’re welcome back whenever you’re ready. It takes time. Pat yourself on the back for what you have done in it. It’s a start. You are moving in the right direction.
Thank you for that. I appreciate you so much because it’s a drudgery task. It’s a harsh task. You always have such a bright and light spirit. You’re easy to listen to, to be with, and to hear. I appreciate that so much about you and what you do on your show on Win Win Women. People need to find you. How do they find you? Let’s talk a little bit about that.
It’s AnnCueva@me.com My website is TimeIsTheKey.com. You can purchase the book from there or you can get it on Amazon. It talks about the workshops there. If you have a question and you want to ask, you can also do that as well. For getting organized, there is a scorecard if you want to know where to get started. Do know I’m going to tell you with your paperwork. Also, as you are getting your paperwork together, guess what? You’re getting your information in one place where you can fill out your book. It’s like a win-win there as well. There are many things on there that I talk about.
The reason I can talk about this is because I’ve lived it. I’ve lived it with one side completed and one side not. Let me tell you. The side that was completed was much better to go through. You’re in grief. You’re going to have your own way that you grieve. This is the paper side of it, the things you’re going to need. We’re seeing families be torn apart because one person heard mom say she wanted to be cremated and the other person says, “I never heard her say that.” That delays the burial. Sometimes, it’s not even over that. It’s little things. If that can take the place of saying, “It’s in her writing. It’s here,” to me, I’ve done my job.
When you are in grief, you have your own way of handling your sadness. Share on XIt takes the emotion out of it. It takes the uncertainty out of it. There’s no emotion. It’s like, “Mom said it. I wish she hadn’t. I wish she’d have said it this way. I wish she’d done this. This is the way I want.” Take yourself out of it. It’s not about you.
Exactly. That’s right.
Time Is The Key
You brushed over your website pretty quickly. It’s TimeIsTheKey.com. Where does that come from? You’re organizing from the past.
It’s a common denominator. Everything that I do has to do with time. You were saying, “I’ll do it later or just for now.” I thought, “Time is the key.” A key is my logo. I thought, “Time is the key to getting these things done and making sure that we’re putting things on our calendar to get things done.” Life will pass you by if you don’t have a plan.
Time is the key to getting things done. Make sure you plan properly, or else life will pass you by. Share on XI know for my sister and I, once a month, we always have something we’re going to look forward to even if it’s to go watch a sunset, go out to play, dinner, or whatever we want to do. That’s something. If I don’t put it on my calendar, it’s not going to happen. A lot of times, people will say when I work with them, “You’re so calm about everything. I want what you have.” I say, “I have plenty of days where I’m upset, but I will give myself ten minutes. I can cry, scream, and do whatever I need to do, and then I go, “I’m alive and healthy. There’s more to this than whatever this current problem is, so I’m going to move on.”
I’m on this side of the dirt breathing free oxygen I’m provided for. To get upset over the stupidest thing. We’re in the big eternity blip. We’re using our blip and upset that doesn’t make sense.
One thing that we learned is that losing a child is the worst possible thing you can go through. I had a choice. I could pull the covers up over my head or go on. I have other children, my husband, and myself to live for. I didn’t want to live it curled up in a ball, so I decided, “I’m going to live every day as if it’s my last.” We’re told to do that. We’re told not to worry about tomorrow.
That’s what I do when I start getting upset about something. I think, “If I’m going to die at 6:00 tonight, do I want to spend my last few hours worrying about this?” It’s wonderful. Without even thinking about it, it goes away. It makes your big problem seem like nothing. The next time you’re all stressed out with anything, do that. Say, “Not to be morbid, but if today is my last day, how do I want to spend it?” I want my last day to be fun and upbeat and how I can help other people. I want it fun, doing what I want to do, rather than being upset.
Upset draws upset. I don’t watch television, I don’t watch the news. My life is happier because of that. If people are like, “The world is going to end in two weeks,” they spend two weeks cowering on the corner of the couch watching doom coming when I don’t even know that. I get to go out and I’m giving as many hugs, as many smiles, and as much light as I possibly can to everyone I meet.
Will my last two weeks be better or worse than the one that is cowering in fear? That, to me, is not even an option. I’m like, “I don’t need to know all that stuff. f I have an action step I need to take, I will do that.” To be prepared and not scared is the way I started 2020. Bless people and love people. When the worst things are going on and you go, “May you be blessed,” where I am is all I have anyway.
I might as well accept it because upset doesn’t make this minute easier. If you’re upset, it makes it harder. You can’t think as clearly, so get over yourself. I was telling my grandkids, “Nobody can hurt your feelings or make you upset without your permission.” When you walk in that perspective, you can go, “I get a choice.” This is a completely off-the-track conversation a little bit.
It’s what you said. I get to choose. I put it on my calendar to go have a happy time with my sister. Guess what? We had, since 1970, an annual gathering of the girls with my sisters and my mom while she was here. That dynamic has changed. We don’t know what it will look like, but we’ll still do it. We have those annual, at least, memories.
Those are priceless.
You get to know some tidbits about the family you didn’t know and things like that in those conversations. I’m so grateful for you. I have extreme, high respect for what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and how kind and calm your demeanor is to nudge us with the velvet boot.
I appreciate that. People laugh at me. They go, “Let me get this right. You worked on paperwork for the past twenty-something years. How boring is that? How awful is that? Now, you’re promoting a book on if something happens to you. What are you? You’re picking all these subjects that are hard to deal with.” I said, “That’s the point. They’re not hard once you do something about them. They don’t have to be hard anymore.” That is what drives me. There is a way.
Action is the antidote. Action is the antidote to depression. Action is the antidote to fear. Action is the next right step. Take a step towards what you want and take the next step. You don’t have to know all the steps. Sitting and wishing it was done is not working. That doesn’t work. There are no fairy godmothers, right?
There is not. We’re all different. We all process our feelings and everything in different ways. That’s so important too. No matter how we think or how we process situations or anything, you need to make a plan while you can. You’re giving a gift not only to yourself but to others. I promise you. It brings more peace than it does being scared or icky feelings. Something happens to make your life more beautiful, believe it or not. You will feel so blessed. You do not have to know you have to do that anymore or whatever that you’re looking to be doing.
I’m projecting. I told my grandson, “What if you think about the secret of a lot of successful athletes and things?” He’s into TaeKwonDo and all that little bit of martial arts. He said, “If you see yourself doing it and being there before you do it, that punch is going to be easier, better, and more solid.” That’s practice. If we can see that endpoint that the room is organized as well as the file cabinets, where the scissors are, and you know where everything is, and it is organized, when you start seeing it, then honestly, I believe it starts drawing to you as well as long as you’re taking a positive action step.
That’s right. Change is good. Change can be good. People are afraid of change.
Change is inevitable. The only thing constant is change. There are a lot of colloquialisms and sayings around all that but it’s the truth. There’s nothing static. The time keeps on ticking whether you like it or not. It’s already July of 2024. It’s ticking very fast.
I even told my husband, “We’ll have the Christmas tree up soon.”
In January, I usually say, “It’s only eleven months until Christmas.” In the summer, I quit saying it and all of a sudden, I’m in October going, “Two months until Christmas.” It goes so fast. I don’t think it’s those old people. It’s for almost everybody. Honestly, the vibration of the earth is moving faster. An hour is still an hour, but the vibrations of our universe and our world are on the subtle side of moving fast. It feels faster.
Everyone is so busy, rushed, and cramming so much into a day when you need to simplify. That makes a difference right there.
Less is more. In the material world out there, we’re so inundated. We’ve got instant Amazon. That’s a good thing in a lot of ways than what we’re used to.
Ordering Caskets
When you said Amazon, I wanted to tell you something. This was about a year ago. I watched the CBS Sunday morning show. Did you know on Amazon that you can order a casket? They sell caskets on Amazon. It’s called Titan Caskets. This man did a beautiful segment on the show. The story is about an employee or a friend of his. She was young and her father had passed away. They didn’t have the money to pay for the casket.
This man went and they took care of that for her. He then started thinking, “There’s got to be another way for these caskets.” You get the same quality casket. You can go to Amazon and get it for 1/4 of the price that you would normally pay. The people go, “Why would I go get a casket now?” I said, “There are all kinds of organizing ways you can store that casket. You can put your Christmas decorations in it and store them in the attic.”
It’s the mummy case in the corner.
I was like, “Put bookshelves in there.” There were so many jokes about it. Several people have used that.
That’s a great thing to know. I do believe that in that industry, there are a lot of compassionate people there, but there’s a lot of taking advantage of people in a time of desperate need. They’re like, “Don’t you think your mom would like this gold inlay?”
You want the best for your mother.
She deserves the best. We’re going to be paying for the next 40 years. We all are on that. We know that this happens. In good conscience, I could never sell.
There are many good ones out there, but that is how they make their money. If you fill out your workbook, you could say, “This is where my casket order is from. I’ve picked it out. This is the number, the color, and everything.” It helps you financially. The cost of a funeral is what shocks people. If someone loses somebody with one of my clients, for example, they are like, “I cannot believe what I have to pay.” I said, “It’s because no one talks about it.”
This is an incredibly important topic then. We’re bringing it to light with light because that’s who you are.
Thank you.
Episode Wrap-Up
This always goes fast.
I appreciate you having me.
This is Ann Cueva with TimeIsTheKey.com. You can find both of us on the WinWinWomen.tv network. We’re on Audible and platforms all over the place. I know that my show is anyway, but I believe Win-Win Women is doing that as well, which is great.
They are. It’s a great platform.
There is so much to share. I believe we’re in the right place at the right time. Thank you so much for being here, for doing what you do, and for the book, Grief Without Chaos. To plan while you can is a highly important message. What I’ve learned over episode 18 of season 2 is it’s not like I have a show anymore that I have to interview. I get so engaged with people and love the conversation. That’s my style.
I wanted to thank you too for your smiles and your hugs. The way you start out your show is so uplifting. The world needs a lot of that. I appreciate you and what you do. I am so glad to have you as a friend in my life. It’s a blast. I appreciate you.
Thank you so very much. We’re here every week on the Win-Win Women platform. What’s your show again?
It’s Prep Talk Custom Organizing. It’s on Mondays at 11:00 AM Eastern and 8:00 AM Pacific.
That’s early Pacific, isn’t it?
That’s why I live in the West. I’m blessed.
Thank you. I hope we’ll do it again. I’m so incredibly grateful. We’ll get this thing out soon and up and out. Thank you for being who you are in the world, especially now for what you do for humanity. I love you so much.
I love you too.
You guys remember to always choose joy.
Thank you.
Important Links
- Ann Cueva
- Grief Without Chaos
- Prep Talk Custom Organizing
- AnnCueva@me.com
- https://www.Facebook.com/TimeIsTheKey17
- Mom, Tell Me Your Story
- WinWinWomen.tv
About Ann Cueva
Ann Cueva, CEO of Custom Organizing, Inc. has helped clients take control of their paperwork and organizational needs for the past 30 years. She is a Certified Productive Environment Specialist, Organizing Life Coach, Certified Before I Go Solutions, Facilitator, Speaker and Author. She designs systems to help people save time, space, energy, and money; allowing them to live a more productive and peaceful life.
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I’m Charla Anderson, host of The Charla Anderson Show, Collector & Connector of Fascinating People (and EVERYONE is Fascinating!) on live TV, streaming, and podcasts. As a Ziglar Legacy Certified Trainer, a retired award-winning flight attendant, an Olympic Torchbearer, a personal development junkie, an Inspired Speaker, a Published Author, and Your Courageous Coach, I want to share my passion for living life full-out, saying YES to intriguing opportunities, and encouraging YOU to do the same. Let’s jump on a discovery call and get to know each other. Find all things Charla at CharlaAnderson.com/links.
On The Charla Anderson Show, We discuss Mindset, How much Your WORDS matter, princess-to-queen energy, mantras, HOPE, Faith, Miracles, Overcoming, and much, much more, including learning from amazing guests.
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