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Hello Reader,

This was not how I was expecting to spend my lunch break.

I'd boiled a couple of eggs the day before and put them in the fridge for later.

I don't really like cold eggs, so I grabbed one of them and put it in the microwave to warm up a bit (yeah, I'm pretty sure you know where this is going, don't you 😅).

I set the microwave on for 20 seconds and made the mistake of walking away.

At 18 seconds I heard an ominous "pop."

I swung around and raced back to the microwave as fast as I could.

But I was too late.

Just as the "done" signal dinged, the egg exploded.

And it went everywhere. Including the floor, because when I opened the door, bits of egg yolk tumbled out. Odd fact … the exploding egg yolk bits flew further than the egg white bits.

Grumbling under my breath, I started cleaning up. But the still warm pieces of egg just smushed into tinier bits and smeared everywhere.

I finally gave up in defeat and ate my lunch, glaring at the offending mess.

Once everything had cooled down, I finished cleaning up. But there are now bits of egg yoke in places I can't reach. Like just inside the holes of the grill or air vent (not sure which it is).

And it can be like that in business sometimes.

We do something that we know might be a bit risky. Like not putting away enough to cover our taxes. Or not creating backups of critical documents and files. Or not turning all those emails and phone conversations and what we assumed the other person said (or meant) into actual, legally binding agreements or contracts.

Oh, we might try to mitigate the risk. But just like I thought 20 seconds wouldn't be long enough to cause problems, things can still unexpectedly blow up in our faces.

Don't know about you, but I hate cleaning up messes that could have been avoided.

Here's the thing about that egg. I KNEW twenty seconds might be too long. I just decided it probably wouldn't be, and walked away.

That's the exact kind of thing that catches us out in business. Not the risks we never saw coming, but the ones we spotted, shrugged at, and half-covered. The tax money we mean to set aside. The backup we keep meaning to sort. The handshake deal we never actually put in writing, because we were pretty sure we both meant the same thing.

They rarely blow up on a quiet day. They blow up the week you finally step away.

So before you switch off this week, pick the ONE thing you've been meaning to sort and keep putting off. Set the tax aside, run the backup, get that agreement in writing, whatever your version is. One small job now beats scraping yolk out of the vents later.

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Back to Basics

Think of one arrangement you're running on a "we both know what we meant" basis. A client scope, a rate, a deadline, who owns what. Send a short email this week that spells it out and asks them to confirm. It doesn't have to be a scary contract, just a paper trail you'll be glad of later.

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A Quick Time-Saving Tip

Copy the relevant emails or your notes from a call, paste them into Claude or ChatGPT, and ask it to pull out what was actually agreed. Then use this prompt to give the output some oomph: "Turn this into a short plain-English summary of what we agreed. Ask me as many questions as you need before you write it, so you don't guess." It surfaces the gaps you'd otherwise miss, and you send it off in five minutes instead of thirty.

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Highlight of the Week

If you're leaning on Claude or ChatGPT to tidy up your agreements this week, this might help. On the podcast I sat down with Sara Lohse for Ep 250, The one thing ChatGPT can't do for your business.

The short version: AI is brilliant at the tidying and the drafting, but it can't be the person in the relationship. It can't read the room, build the trust, or decide what you actually stand for. Worth a listen if you're working out where the tool ends and you begin.

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And that's it for this week. Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Trudy

P.S. If today's story hit a nerve and you're realising a few too many of your agreements live in your inbox rather than an actual contract, this one's for you. I talked with lawyer Shatrasha Butler about the plain, practical side of protecting your business in Ep 233, How to legally protect your business without hiring a lawyer. No scary legalese, just what actually matters.