Getting Things Done.

           It’s been a year since I’ve posted anything on this blog page. A lot happened last year. It began simply enough like any other and I was motivated to blog about the projects that were coming in. I was motivated to organise the workshop and to record my own restoration projects. I had some stresses though as any small business owner does except that I wasn't managing them as well as I should have (Should is the least useful word in the lexicon of Small Business management). I didn't realise I was battling depression and exhaustion, but having come from a long line of stoics and belief in the power of persevering, I kept going. Mothers milk had extra doses of resilience in it. Rather than it getting better, as I was planning on it doing, the metaphorical mud at my feet quite quickly got deeper, thicker, until I found it really difficult to get through the day or even to get up. I was in the middle of a crisis, up shit creek without a paddle. Then I had a medical emergency.  Then the phone stopped ringing as I couldn't really function or make decisions on how to answer a simple email. I still had nearly $20,000 to pay off my business loan and I could barely make rent let alone make those repayments.Then my relationship ended. I had trained myself in Getting Things Done but my overwhelm-ment got to a nauseating level and I was forced to surrender to a healing process. To be brief about all this though, and get to the moral of the story I had just been given a lesson ( a giant slap to the back of the head type lesson) on the importance of saying no. The absolute life saving value of the No word. It had been such a dirty word prior to that. It was so hard to say No! I felt like I was failing! 


      At 28 years and baby faced, trying to get as much work as possible to succeed I said yes to everything and anything. Yes to answering calls after hours. Yes to delivering tomorrow when that required me staying up all night to finish. Yes to working for 40 days straight. Yes to 3.30am starts. etc etc. If you are a small business owner you know that we kind of brag about these ridiculous situations we find ourselves in. I must be successful if I’m this busy. Insane behaviour = success! That formula got me into all sorts of trouble as a decade or so went past. A decade of putting other peoples needs before my own because I wanted to be seen as being a really good, nice, helpful person.  Not anymore! *laughs maniacally* I have had to re-assess what it means for me to be successful. Now I feel I’m successful because I can take my siesta for how ever long I need it. I am successful because I can tell you truthfully whether I’ll be able to take on the work and how long it will take. I am successful because I did weather one hell of a shit storm of a year and so came out the other side because I asked for help. I am successful because I have beautiful, generous, loving people around me. I’m successful because my relationship had enough love in it to re-blossom. In the end (this isn’t the end) I got a healthier perspective and a healthy dose of SSRI’s into me and I managed to pay off my loan. At the heart of it upholstery is a renewal process, a stripping back to bare, often times ugly but never the less humble frame, to the truth of the matter. So this year the motto is “Serve with the spirit of the job not with the duty of the job”. The spirit of the job is loving restoration and sometimes that includes the owner as well. Job done.