What Happens To Your Business If You're Hit By a Bus?

A couple-three thoughts brought on by the flu and not being able to work the first four days of this week.

Or hit by TWO buses!!!! I do somethings love the random nature of a genAI image prompt: bus hitting someone and they are flying through the air.

What happens to your business if you get hit by a bus?

Or, much less dramatically, get sick for four days like I’ve been this week?

Working as a “solopreneur” (great googally moogally but I hate that word) has a way of making you confront and overcome unexpected fears and obstacles.

For me, I’ve realized that I have got to put systems/habits/workflows/processes – pick your favored word – to ensure some bit of continuity when the flu bug bites your ass and you can’t work.

If you’re one of those supercharged, NOTHING SLOWS ME DOWN types who barrels through; bully for you, this isn’t for you.

For the rest of us more fallible humans, whose brains refuse to function when sick*, here are a few ways I’ll be “bus proofing” my business.

Here's the list I jotted down for myself this morning about making sure work continues if I’m ever hit by a bus – or the flu just has me feeling like it.

Tell Everyone You’re Sick!

I am horrible at this part. I don’t communicate with my clients daily all the time, so it’s easy to think “I’ll be better tomorrow.”

Until tomorrow comes and it’s all you can do to remember to put on shorts before you open the door to walk your dogs.

Just a quick note to let folks know is the lowest of low-hanging customer communication fruit.

Passwords

I have a small notebook that I keep all of my passwords in.

Let someone you trust know where it is.

This is also a useful nudge to myself to get them all in order. And to separate the “life” passwords from the ones for work.

List of Client Contacts

Simple spreadsheet or Word document with contact name, company, email, and phone number.

In case you really are hit by a bus, the same person you trust with the passwords needs to know who to contact to pass on the news.

Bank Content Early – At Least One to Two Weeks Ahead

This is something I KNOW and have done for the majority of my career.

During my magazine days, I was always working two to three issues ahead. For copier clients, we generally tried to keep a month’s worth of content (they were all inbound marketing engagements) ahead.

Now? I’m going to:

• Write LinkedIn posts a week in advance (myself and clients)

• Get at least one month of newsletter content banked (preferably two)

This doesn’t mean you MUST publish those if something topical comes up that you want to write about. Or if you latch onto an idea and want to share it ASAP.

Do that.

And, hey, lookey there – you’re now even further ahead!

Schedule

I am going to schedule those LinkedIn posts (within LinkedIn itself or a tool like SocialBee) as well as my newsletter posts as soon as I have them ready.

You can always shuffle them around if the bus keeps missing you.

Block Time

I am a huge fan of the Pomodoro technique of time blocking. I am more effective when I use it, which is “often,” but not always.

That changes starting, well, now. My pig kitchen timer is ticking away as I type this. I need to use my time more wisely to get all the things done.

Keep Meds On Hand

Because I haven’t had flu with a cough in quite a while, I only realized my meds were out-of-date when I woke up at 2 a.m. and couldn’t breath.

What tastes worse than night time flu meds? Those same meds four years out of date. And, yeah, I chugged it down anyway.

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Anyone else out there dealing with this? Would love to hear your thoughts and ideas and suggestions because I’m 99.6% I’m forgetting something.

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* How dysfunctional does my brain get? Oscar, my 15-year-old Boxer, has been in diapers for a few months. He dribbles. He’s 105 in dog years. It happens. Anyway, after walking him Wednesday, forgot to put a diaper on him. Two hours later, I roused from the couch to notice multiple small puddles on my floor.