Check Your Wet Drawers
Yesterday (as I’m writing this), we had a wet iPad.
Today, my message is to check your wet drawers.
I realise that requires some explanation.
The iPad was not the whole calamity
Yesterday morning, I found Paul’s iPad case standing upright on top of the fridge. He told me his iPad had “got a wash”, but neither of us realised there was anything else to investigate.
Last night, I went into the bathroom to take my puffer.
It was wet.
I picked up some of the other things in the drawer. They were wet too. The drawer itself was wet.
The bottom drawer contained boxes of my tablets, toiletries and various bathroom supplies. Everything had to come out. Thankfully, the tablets were protected inside something else, although their boxes were soaked through.
Otherwise, Paul may have found himself paying for new prescriptions as well.
Paul becomes a bathroom contortionist
Once we discovered the wet drawer, everything had to be emptied and spread across the bathroom sink to dry.
Paul tried to remove the bottom drawer so he could dry the runners and reach the water behind it. The drawer refused to come out, which meant he had to contort himself around the bathroom furniture to reach the back.
It became a blooming calamity.
We still don’t know whether Paul accidentally knocked the tap on or whether it was dripping all night. He was the last person to come to bed, so I think we all know where the official responsibility lies.
We checked the obvious problem
We found the wet iPad first, so we focused on the wet iPad.
I didn’t check the bathroom drawers because I thought the water had come from the kitchen. Paul didn’t check because it was four o’clock in the morning and he was trying to get ready for work.
We dealt with the thing we could see without asking what else might have been affected.
The wet drawer sat there for the rest of the day.
What is the wet drawer in your business?
This happens in business too.
You change a page on your website, but one of the links leading to it breaks. You alter something in an email nurture sequence, but the next email no longer sends.
The first change may look fine. The hidden consequence can sit unnoticed until somebody tries to use it.
I had my own example recently. MailerLite didn’t tell me that I had gone over the limit on some of my automations, so last Friday’s email didn’t send. I discovered the problem and sent the email today, but it was another wet drawer that needed checking.
Check what else may have been affected
You can’t anticipate every possible problem in your business, but it is worth looking beyond the first obvious thing.
If you change a web page, test the links that lead people towards it. If you update an automation, check that the complete sequence still runs. If something unexpectedly stops working, look around it rather than assuming the problem ends there.
Fix the wet iPad, then check the drawers.
What have you got in your business that may need checking?
