Staging environments, often problematic for software teams, serve as replicas of production to test changes before release but face challenges that hinder efficiency and confidence. Common issues include unpredictable "cheese-moving" development due to miscommunication among team roles, data-related problems stemming from sensitive or poorly maintained datasets, and a lack of awareness of what is deployed. To address these, best practices such as adopting infrastructure-as-code (IaC), establishing a single source of truth through Git for tracking changes, investing in maintaining representative data, ensuring repeatability through testing, and simplifying processes can significantly enhance staging environments. By implementing these strategies, teams can reduce the effort in managing staging environments, allowing them to focus on delivering value to customers and achieving business objectives more effectively.