Category: Time Management

It’s important to follow physiotherapist instructions and to minimise stress on my back during recovery from back injury.

The goal is to be fully functional and working fit so that I can continue in my career and not be forced to limit my day to day operations.

I’ve noticed that the main problem that seems to trigger unnecessary pain and a worsening of my back condition is transitions between different postures, whether standing or sitting.

It makes sense to minimise the number of transitions I make between different postures while my back is still in recovery. Hopefully this will minimise pain and prevent worsening of the condition. This does not mean being less active. Simply planning my movements better to eliminate or reduce unnessary changes in position.

Other than that, these are the steps I can follow.

1. Create a cleaning roster for each day of the holidays. List who is the primary cleaner and who is the backup until 7th January when my supervisor returns.
2. Delegate all cleaning tasks. Do not do any cleaning shifts yourself. Cleaning shifts have led to injury.
3. Continue to do stretching exercises as directed by the physio.
4. Minimise car travel. Limit to half an hour per day and always use back rest cushion.
5. Increase the regularity of aquajogging exercises and spa, as an alternative to riding the ebike or other exercise.
6. Set up laptop with Microsoft Word and Excel.
7. Find a comfortable supine position from which to do writing.
8. Take the back injury seriously and do not stress yourself with writing tasks during recovery unless you are sure they can be completed pain and injury free.
9. Set up the standing desk as soon as you return to work. Clean and remove old desk and replace with new standing desk.

A recession may still be a way off, but it feels more inevitable. A lot of recent growth has been driven by growing levels of indebtedness. Low rates of interest have led to widespread accumulation of debt and also quite possibly the worsening of quality of debt. Small increases in interest rates, driven by inflation and restructures to the economy, could now have a much more
marked effect on the level of defaults and consumer spending patterns.

If and when the time comes, I want to be clear on where I want to be.

A decent personal cash reserves
Full time employed in addition to running the business
A decent reserve in the motel bank account
All debts that have the potential to be interest bearing in the next 12 months, paid off

Until this position has been reached, it’s not worth thinking about investing. When the recession comes, the opportunity will come to think about investing anyway.

Will it be enough to get us through? Possibly not. It depends on how long the recession lasts.

The realisation for me is that planning for the recession starts with how I conduct myself on a day to day basis. It starts with how I change my behaviour today.

I recently suffered a fairly debilitating back injury. I’m on a road to recovery thanks to a very capable physiotherapist, but the injury has wreaked havoc on my time management, cost me countless hours, and really left me feeling short-changed in terms of what I might have achieved.

The cause of this is that any position other than laying on my back can be intensely painful. But it occurs to me there are still things I can do while laying on my back.

Even as I read this I can detect a level of my own workaholic neurosis. Yes, my body needs to rest. Yes, there are things I want to do. No, I may not be able to accommodate both situations at once. But I can try.

Step 1 – Accept my limitations
Working at a desk or standing is no longer viable. Lying in bed is my basic option. I have to accept that until I’m properly recovered, things aren’t going to move at the rate I want them to.

Step 2 – List my abilities
What can I do while I’m not 100%? Lots, really. I can write on Evernote on my phone. I can read. I can use my laptop to access the internet. I can make phone calls. I can create documents and I can delegate.

Step 3 – Focus on what I really want to do
One good thing about this situation is it forces me to reevaluate. If I’m using so much of my life for work, am I doing what I really want to do? Am I doing what matters?

If I only had 5 productive hours a week, what would I spend them on? What about 10? What about 20? Limitation forces focus.

Step 4 – Identify what is practically stopping me from doing what I want to do I want to finish a novel. Is there a reason I can’t do that on my back? In a sense, yes. My document is on my desktop computer and I need to be sitting upright to access it. But it’s as simple as moving the Word document to a laptop or transportable device where I can access it while reclining.

Step 5 – Force yourself to take action
We all know how this is done. Count to 5. Then on 5, do what needs to be done to restructure your environment to make it work for you even in spite of your illness or injury.

We’ve got a pretty good business. Each night, we are filling up, even during the midweek. But I still feel there is room for the motel to do better.

Below I’ve listed some items that I aim to improve upon as a step towards continuous improvement at Otaki Motel.

Place customer service first

● Minimum expectations for management (opening hours, closure policies, what to do if closing the office, how to support guests when we are away from the office)
● Address manager burnout
● Improve responsiveness to sales enquiries
● System for checking phone messages regularly
● Train relieving managers on answering emails

Ensure staff are happy with their roles

● Contracts
● Create manager roster
● Install new whiteboard with string

Review financials

● Complete new breakeven cost analysis
● Quantify all loans and record in motel loan book

Improve systems

● Train managers to record health and safety issues
● Record needed items on whiteboard
● Empower staff to purchase needed items, on account if needed