As the first Minnesotan certified by Marie Kondo to use the patented KonMari Method of home organization, Michele Vig takes her job at Neat Little Nest seriously. In fact, she performs several roles in the company. Not only is the CEO, but she is also the resident professional organizer, home decluttering expert, and storage designer.
What does Neat Little Nest do? Michele Vig founded the company to “help people create the beautifully organized spaces they’ve always dreamed about.” At the company, she also makes sure to design storage solutions that are not only beautiful and creative, but are also practical and useful. For her designs, she uses custom labels that feature the Neat Little Nest’s particular aesthetic.
Michele Vig spent over 20 years as a corporate executive. However, her calling of entrepreneurship grew too strong, and she left her job to found Neat Little Nest. Her company allows her to pursue her “lifelong passion to create beautifully designed and organized spaces.” At her job, she transforms lives regularly. By helping people dispose of the things that do not bring them joy anymore, she helps them “reconnect” with the things that do make them happy.
Aside from running Neat Little Nest, Michele Vig has also written the home organizing book titled “The Holistic Guide to Decluttering.” The book includes “step-by-step tutorials, reflection tools, and worksheets,” which helps readers learn the process of holistic decluttering and organizing so that they can enjoy the freedom of a mess-free life.
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Jerome Knyszewski: What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Michele Vig: Our goal is to help people look at clutter holistically and how clutter is impacting them in a variety of ways — keeping them from living their most desired lives. Many organizing professionals focus solely on physical clutter, which is helpful, but removal of physical clutter doesn’t always lead to the transformation and sense of peace that people seek. My new book, The Holistic Guide to Decluttering, talks about other places where clutter lives — in our minds, and as time stealers. We waste so much time looking for things or trying to multitask — organizing isn’t just about our physical stuff.
Working with one of my clients, I could tell she was struggling with keeping track of her to-dos — she had sticky notes throughout her space, along with several notebooks full of notes. When I asked her more about her challenges, she shared her system wasn’t working, and it was affecting her in many ways. We discussed options for her to consider for a daily planner as well as set up a system for her in her office so she could manage her daily mail and papers. These changes helped her take back her time and feel more capable of taking on everything that she needed to focus on in her busy life.
Jerome Knyszewski: Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
Michele Vig: The biggest tip I recommend to the colleagues in my industry are the same I would recommend to everyone: Your health is your wealth, so ensure you are giving your physical and mental health as much attention as your work — both in your home and away from home.
Jerome Knyszewski: None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Michele Vig: I am grateful to have many people who have helped me achieve success along my journey — from my first advertising agency job where my boss let me present to a client early on to a leader who gave me the opportunity to create a research department with no experience, just the passion to do it. But he person who stands out for me the most was a coach named Alison. She helped me develop to a level I didn’t realize was possible, and provided me real, brutal feedback — the kind you really would prefer not to hear, but you need to know.
She helped me understand to rise into the C-Suite you no longer will produce results based on your own abilities, but rather on your ability to lead and grow people. The growth I had as a leader in the five years that followed our first conversation were transformational — I was grateful for her honesty and the tools she provided me to help me learn and grow.
To this day, I use the tools and techniques that Alison taught me to run my business and my life and I have a much more fulfilled life because of it.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you help articulate a few of the reasons why delegating is such a challenge for so many people? There are a few big reasons why delegating is such a challenge, including a lack of trust in the person they are delegating the task to, and the belief they can get the task done quicker and possibly better if they do it themselves.
Michele Vig: At Neat Little Nest, I like to delegate to my team by sharing my initial vision for what needs to be done, check for understanding then give them plenty of room to do their work. One thing I share with my clients with children, and through my social media channels, is the importance for parents to delegate effectively to their children. I’ve seen many parents, especially moms, trying to do everything themselves and burning out. As important as it is to delegate to our teams at work, it’s important to also delegate to our teams at home — either way it provides the leader with the balance they need to find peace and enjoyment in life.
Jerome Knyszewski: In your opinion, what pivots need to be made, either in perspective or in work habits, to help alleviate some of the challenges you mentioned?
Michele Vig: When it comes to trust, remember without delegating work you will not be able to build the trust you need to delegate more work. You are required to give up control. While it might be true you are able to get tasks done quicker than a new employee with less experience — by extending trust and delegating, they will be able to grow their own skills and, in turn, take more off your plate, freeing you up to work on larger challenges. Recently I learned I had to have knee surgery, and would be recovering from it at the same time my book manuscript was due. I had to rethink how I would do business and write the book because I would be on crutches for 8–12 weeks. I began to delegate larger tasks to my team that allowed them to take on aspects of the business in a new way and allowed a growth in their skill sets for future projects.
Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Michele Vig: I would start a movement that would help everyone in the world have a home.
Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?
Michele Vig: You can find me on:
@neatlittlenest on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, TikTok and LinkedIn
Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
