TLDR: I noticed a bunch of clickbait videos instructing people how you reorder labels, despite Trello not allowing you to do so. So I created a Trello PowerUp called Reorder(able) Labels that enables you to do it.

I created a Trello PowerUp for myself so I can reorder labels as well as replace a label with another label on all cards (even archived ones). This is a feature Trello should have built, but hasn’t, so here I am.

You can try my PowerUp here via a 7-day free trial.

You can even replace/swap labels

1. Pick a label you want to replace
2. Pick a label you want to use instead
3. Decide if you want to replace it only on visible cards or also on archived cards.
4. Perform replacement.

If you are interested in using this Power Up, please reach out to me via saso@sasojakljevic.com so I can see if it is worth finalising and publishing.

Demo of the PowerUp in action

The motivation

I noticed a bunch of clickbait videos on how to reorder labels without actually showing it… because it CANNOT BE DONE…

Fortunately, I figured this out after stumbling upon this support form thread: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Trello-questions/How-do-I-re-order-labels/qaq-p/2061355#U3038290

So I also created my own YouTube video to counter misinformation:

PowerUp Reorder(able) Labels is now live

You can add it from here.

I’m also submitting a request to be added to the Featured Queue with the following image:

Ker vsako leto znova pozabim, sem si tukaj pripravil članek z navodili.

Vidiš napako? Imaš čas in bi dodal še kakšno poglavje? Napši komentar ali pa mi piši na saso@sasojakljevic.com in uredimo.

Kako prijaviti prodajo delnic/ETFov?

Najpomembnejše pri vsem skupaj je, da prodaja poteka po principu FIFO (First In, First Out). To pomeni, da ko prodaš delnico (ali ETF), ki si jo večkrat kupil, bo najprej prodana prva in temu primerno obdavčena.

Pri tem procesu si pomagam z https://davkomat.si/, ki celoten proces v veliki meri poenostavi, če kupuješ in prodajaš samo na enem podprtem brokerju (npr. IBKR). Če se bojiš vnašat podatke na spletno stran so tukaj navodila za Python skripto.

Za Trade Republic lahko pomaga orodje https://github.com/TheCodeFighter/TaxBrokerReport iz objave https://www.reddit.com/r/SlovenijaFIRE/s/rBChPHq01s

Ob nakupih in prodajah istih delnic na nazličnih brokerjih moraš sam vodit evidenco. Je pa to tako ali tako že dobra praksa. Če kdo rabi template mi pišite.

Prijava s pomočjo Davkomata

V glavnem je navodilo “sledi navodilom na platformi Davkomat…” res dobro obrazložijo. Doatno pa:

• Ko nalagaš več datotek zajemi vse datoteke hkrat, saj nalaganje eno po eno trenutno ne deluje.
• Za druge nepodpte platforme kot je Trade Republic, si lahko pomagaš z njihovo GoogleTabelo, ki jo lahko pravtako izpolniš, izvoziž zavihke kot .csv in uvoziš v davkomat.si.

Dokument, ki ti ga davkomat vrže ven naložiš v eDavke preko funkcije uvoza:

Ko naložiš in pošlješ dokument, padeš na predizpolnjen obrazec “Doh-KDVP”.

Ostane še dodajanje prilog (nekateri pravijo, da so opcijske pri majših zneskih).

Ročna prijava

Izberi obrazec “Doh-KDVP”.

Ročno dodaj vrednostne papirje…

Za tiste, ki vas zanima kaj je investicijski kupon : “Ko kupite investicijski kupon, postanete vlagatelj v sklad, vendar ne postanete lastnik posameznih vrednostnih papirjev, ki jih sklad kupuje.”

Poleg dodanih vrednostnih papirjev bo verjetno ikona s klicajem. To je samo opozorilo, da bodi pozoren pri izbiri v stoplcu s tekstom “Pravilo iz drugega odstavka v povezavi s petim odstavkom 97. člena ZDoh-2 **”, ki glede na Chat GPT pomeni:

Na koncu samo še dodaj priloge in oddaj.

Kdaj in kako prijavit prodajo deleža podjetja (d.o.o.)?

Prijava prodaje deleža podjetja se izvede preko obrazca “Doh-KDVP”. To je isti obrazec kot prijava prodaje delnic ali ETF-ov, zato lahko prijavo izvedeš sočasno.

Prodajo deleža dodaš s klikom na “delež”…

…, ki odpre novo okno kamor vneseš:

• vložke kapitala, povečanja, nakup deleža,…
• prodaje deleža.

Jaz sem priložil še notarsko overjen dokument prenosa deleža kot dokazilo na dnu na krovnem obrazcu:

Kdaj in kako prijaviti obresti na prihranke iz Trade Republic?

Ker ima od 6. Decembra 2024 Trade Republic bančno licenco smo opravičeni plačila in prijave obresti do 1000€.

Podatki kot so davnčna, naslov,… za Trade Republic se nahajajo v footerju Account statement-a. Uporabiš polje identification number in tam vpišeš VAT Number.

Revolut savings: https://www.reddit.com/r/SlovenijaFIRE/comments/1akh1ke/financesi_kako_fursu_pravilno_napovedati_zaslu%C5%BEek/

Debata o dilemi ALI se na obresti od pozitivnega stanja na TRR (npr. Trade Republic) ne placa davka: https://www.reddit.com/r/SlovenijaFIRE/comments/1hvoblb/zbrana_vpra%C5%A1anja_in_odgovori_faq_furs_dohodek_iz/?share_id=cdF05y9GFXBjKzrMKGQe8&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

Kdaj in kajo prijaviti prodajo ali dospelost obveznic?

https://www.reddit.com/r/SlovenijaFIRE/s/ad0BAzeN8y

Kdaj in kako prijaviti “refferal reward” delnice na Trade Republice/IBKR/…?

Tukaj naj povem, da sem za leto 2024 prijavil cca 6€ bonusa prejetega s strani Trade Republic preko obrazca Doh-Doh.

Nekaj dni kasneje sem prejel klic s strani FURSa, da sem uporabil napačen obrazec in se to smatra kot obresti na depozite (pri TR?). Če pa nisem imel več kot 1000€ obresti ne rabim prijavljat in je bolje, da enostavno storniram oddan obrazec z razlogom “napačen obrazec”.

Kaj moram še raziskati?

• w-8 ben obrazec na IBKR — https://www.reddit.com/r/SlovenijaFIRE/comments/1iqa7em/comment/md4aepi/

After years of back pain, I realised that sitting less and moving more can (sometimes) help me have less back pain. Who would have thought, right?

So I had a bright idea for my Fitbit Sense to provide me with extra reminders to stand up or sit down every 15 min.

Aren’t good solutions already out there?

Well… the walk reminder every hour did not do much for me. I tried using the default Fitbit timer app, and it was… ok.

The problems I had with it:

1. pressing the buttons to restart the timer every 15 minutes became a hassle.
2. If I had a long meeting, I would forget to restart it (as it turns off by default after the alarm goes off).
3. On top of that, on some mornings, I was simply too lazy to set it up.

So why not build an app that will remind me every N minutes to change my position? To stand/sit/move around) until I disable it? Or even start and stop the reminders based on a predefined schedule?

So I kicked things into gear with some hand-drawn wireframes while I was on a lunch break. You can see a bit of burger oil on the wireframes:

The size and shape of the Fitbit Sense smartwatch screen are special, like your nephew. With a little bit of digging, I got the s dimensions:

I used the Squircle plugin to create the screen shape in Figma. I also published the frame template inside the Figma Community. The font used by Fitbit on their smartwatches is Bariol.

And I was off digitising the hand-drawn wireframes in Figma.

… just kidding. This took about 2 hours:

I even made this Figma prototype that you can also copy for yourself from the Figma Community.

Nothing fancy. Trying to make my life easier in the building phase. Which to be honest could be even simpler… you’ll see what I mean later.

Convincing the Chat GPT-4 to “spill the beans” aka. Building the app.

So this is where the real challenge begins. I’ve heard many people talk about how great chat GPT is in helping Noobs like myself build apps.

So I got the paid version and kicked things off by asking it how to start:

It was pretty good at helping me kick things off and pointing me to the Fitbit documentation when needed. So within the first day, I had:

• Installed VS Code with the relevant support.
• Installed node.js.
• Installed the Fitbit CLI (Command Line Interface).
• Instaled Fitbit simulator.
• Created the first Fitbit app project.
• Ran the first test app based on an example from the documentation.
• Published the app as a private project and installed it on my watch.

Not too shabby even if I do say so myself. So I tried to make a test app.

Soon I realised it was NOT going to be as simple as the title I had in mind: “Chat GPT helped him effortlessly build the app…”.

I ended up reading the Fitbit User Interface Guide, after hours of Chat GPT’s “help”. It kept giving me false solutions and then some more false solutions to the errors from the command line. Eventually, I managed to put this on my watch:

We’re into the second day of building.

I’ve just had breakfast, ready to get back into it and I noticed that I forgot how to restart the project…

So here is what I have to do at the start of each “coding” session:

• Open project in Visual Studio Code
• Open Fitbit OS Simulator
• Open CMD window
• Navigate to the project by writing cd C:\Users\sasoj\Documents\Fitbit_First_App\my-first-fitbit-app
• Log into the Fitbit simulator(?) by writing npx fitbit
• Do some code changes in Visual Studio Project & press Ctrl + S to save.
• In cmd use the arrow keys to select build and the install instruction to run the code in the Fitbit OS Simulator. (Don’t forget to press Enter after choosing the instruction to actually run it… in case it’s not obvious you know.)

The first screens aka. realising what ChatGPT is not good at

I tried using ChatGPT to generate the front end starting with the welcome screen. This was the prompt:

I have a few screens in the smartwatch app. I want you to help me convert the designs into code. The first screen on says has a black background. At the top it says “Wellcome to the” in small latters. Below that it says “Change Porition Reminder” in big letters. Last word falls into the second row and the sentence is centraly aligned. At the bottom there is Fitbit style button “SETUP”. Please generate UI code for it.

It did the job. It generated a useful frontend, but the solutions were missing the components from Fitbit’s Documentation.

It failed miserably on the Fitbit-specific logic. It gave me plenty of false solutions until I gave up, googled and realised the proposals could never work.

This could be due to Fitbit app development being in decline (fewer code bases to learn from = poor solutions).

Still, chat GPT had the latest data until September 2021 and Fitbit Sense and its SDK with documentation came out in 2020… but what do I know...

On a positive note though. This process got me familiar enough with the documentation that I could copy the SVG UI code and Frankenstein it together. Especially the ready-made Fitbit button components.

Through plain old debugging aka. trying to understand the errors in the console, I finally managed to build the first screen of the app:

How the heck do I build another screen?

Do I need to create another file for another screen? How do I jump from screen to screen?

… so let’s see what Chat GPT has to say...

And it worked! Except for navigating between screens…

After many hours of trying to solve the navigation issue, I realised that not all errors were showing in the console.

So I prioritised building mockups of the screens with official components since I already figured out how to do it.

Not exactly the same as Figma but they are good enough. As you can see I abandoned scheduling of the reminder. You’ll see why later in the article.

Upgraded tools

Visual Studio suggested a Fitbit SDK Extension that can:

• provide code suggestions/completion,
• find predefined Fitbit colours,
• fill whole code snippets of components,
• show documentation within VS Code,
• and more.

The time Chat GPT worked like a charm

With the front end out of the way, I had to tackle actual functionality as well as moving between the screens.

ChatGPT was helpful in making the actual timer work. With accurate instructions, I could almost copy and paste the code:

The time Chat GPT did not work like a charm

Now navigation from screen to screen was a different story. I tried one thing after another as proposed by Chat GPT but nothing worked. Until I decided I’d had enough and looked online.

I thought there was probably the right way to jump from screen to screen so that’s why it is not working…

I browsed the open-source app examples to see what I was doing wrong. Realised that most of the examples are not built on Fitbit OS 5 aka. for Fitbit Sense except for:

• Virtual-Pet-APP
• Fitbit-lightest
• Fitbit-clockface-progress

The only multi-page example was built using the old SDK.

Gave up for the day and the next day LITERALLY IN 2 MINUTES I found two forum posts (1, 2) that basically say:

1. List all the screens in the index.view

2. Show/hide each screen when needed through index.js

And WOLA!

The final challenge

Saving the settings… After a metric ton of debugging, I saved data into a file on the watch and the companion section within the Fitbit app. This was a helpful resource.

Just when I was about to call it “Done”

I tested the app and noticed that it doesn’t go off after 15 minutes. According to Chat GPT4, this is because:

After some more digging, I discovered that only one app can be active at one time. The functionality of the native alarm and timer can not be built by commoners like myself…

Did I waste my time?

… no, I refuse to give up!

Could I at least keep the app on at all times using the “Always on-display” mode? Would this keep the app open?

What about using the App Timeout API to stop the watch from triggering a timeout? This might prevent closing the app 2 minutes after the screen goes dark. Found this idea here and ...

This, my friends, is why you do a techical proof of concept first or have a tech lead on a project who tells you if there are any technical limitations …

Finally published (privately)!

Everything about publishing a Fitbit app is well written here.

This is the app if you want to try it before it’s available on the official store.

Now waiting for the official review.

… if you liked this article clap, leave a comment & subscribe to see more product designer adventures.

Contact me at saso@sasojakljevic.com if you are interested in hiring me as a product designer!

I designed & built a Fitbit Smartwatch App with the “help” of AI was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Disclaimer: This article provides a recap of the pain workbook you can find at https://www.greglehman.ca/. The article and the original guide contain general advice which may not be specific to you. It is important that if you are in pain you see a healthcare provider for a diagnosis and screening for serious, albeit rare, pathology. Most pain is not life-threatening or serious. But very rarely, pain is a sign of something else like a tumour, infection or other serious diseases. Please talk to a healthcare provider if you have not seen one before.

Pain is without a doubt weird.

If you have pain, there is a good chance that you have been told something was found on the scan. Some tears, bulges, tendinopathy or degeneration. Sometimes these findings are relevant but not always and they don’t fully explain the pain (they don’t always hurt). Don’t believe me?

• 37% of 20-year-olds with NO PAIN have disc degeneration in their spine (Brinjikji 2015)

• 57% of 20–50-year-olds with no hip pain will have cartilage and ligament tears (Tresch 2016)

• 96% of athletes younger than 22 will show changes on an MRI that some people call “abnormal”. But since everyone has them how “abnormal” can they be? (Rajaswaran 2014)

Chronic pain especially is never as simple as being an indicator of how damaged your body is. You can have:

• pain with damage,
• no pain with lots of damage and
• lots of pain with minimal damage.

What is pain?

“An unpleasant/distressing sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage”.

The biggest thing you should see from this definition is that pain doesn’t necessarily mean there is damage.

What is pain’s purpose?

Pain, like an alarm, is designed to create action. It stops you from walking on a broken leg. When your hand gets near a fire you will feel pain (and often before you even feel pain) and will move your hand away from the fire.

Pain, like an alarm, wants you to do something.

What does pain tell you?

Acute pain (which happens quickly and goes away when there is no cause), is better related to damage, but even acute pain doesn’t tell us too much about the damage. People have been known to break bones, snap ligaments and tear muscles and have no pain at all. Other times, you can have a very small injury or strain and feel incapacitated for days.

Long-term pain on the other hand is not a very good/useful alarm because:

• It is disconnected from the initial problem.
• Having pain for a long time can increase your sensitivity and it's now easier to feel pain.
• It can make you over-react and overprotect your body to the extent that you start triggering the pain with activities you think are protecting you (quite common). For example sometimes simply resting and avoiding activity or stressful/effortful situations makes their sensitivity worse. Your threshold for feeling pain and tolerating stress gets decreases. Your stressor-handling “cup” gets smaller.
• And when pain persists it can get weird. You can feel pain spreading, moving around, coming and going, getting worse or better for no apparent reason, your body can feel shifted or out of place or things that were once OK are now excruciating.
• Pain, like an alarm, doesn’t tell us how much smoke (damage) there is nor do they tell us if there is even a fire (if there even is damage).

How to decrease pain?

Pain is probably occurring because a few factors are mixing together.

Pain, especially chronic pain, is more about sensitivity & habituation than damage. Therefore we have two options for influencing pain:

1. Decrease the stressors or the things that sensitize or contribute to our pain (aka. put less in your “cup” so you can recover and adapt slowly).
2. Build up our tolerance or our threshold for pain perception (aka. increase the size of your “cup”).

Recovery Strategy Tip:

Adaptation can take time. If you have had pain for a long time, then you have adapted slowly over years. Same might go for your recovery. Having patience and knowing that progress can either be fast or gradual is important.

Sensitivity — Role of habits and memories in pain

When pain persists it is almost as if we get “better” at producing pain. This is called long-term potentiation or Sensitization.

We can become more sensitive and activities, movements or environments that we could previously tolerate are now triggers for pain. This sensitization can occur centrally (meaning in the brain and the spinal cord) or it can occur peripherally (meaning the nociceptors get more sensitive and fire more easily).

This is not an unusual thing and we see this in many areas of our lives:

• Have you ever experienced a smell that suddenly triggered a memory or an emotion?
• Have you walked into a location that you haven’t been to in a long time and you suddenly remember an event long forgotten?
• Do you remember when smoking was outlawed in bars and restaurants? Owners were worried about drink sales because smoking was “coupled” with drinking. They facilitated each other.

This sensitization is influenced by continuous tissue irritation (nociception) and by other factors in our life like stress, sleep, catastrophizing, fear or anxiety.

People with sensitization will often have pain that moves around, spreads to other areas of the body, can be sensitive to light or foods and can feel pain where instead they should just feel pressure/touch. They also
tend to flare up more readily.

Some people with mild and intermittent pain (pain coming and going in intervals) will feel better with very aggressive exercise or foam rolling. This is because those activities activate a process that modulates nociception and creates endogenous analgesia (pain relief). Those with central sensitization have a much smaller or no positive response to these approaches and can even flare up with more pain. They lose the ability to modulate the irritation. Exercise is still important but we just have to do it differently. We don’t do as much in one setting, we slowly progress the intensity and we accept that some flare-ups and discomfort will occur.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

Create new memories and associations. If you have an associated movement with pain, or fear and worry with a movement or doing certain activities with pain then we want to do something about that association. Start exposing yourself to the things that are slightly painful, perhaps you do those things slightly differently and slowly you can habituate and perhaps form new and more positive associations with those movements or activities.

If you think its harmful to bend your back or reach your arm over your shoulder you will start to be guarded, fearful and very conscious of how you move. You might think that there is a right way to do a movement instead of thinking that there are countless variations and many, if not all, are acceptable.

With persistent pain you often lose movement options and then you fall into a habit of moving the same way. And its that habit that might have once been helpful but now its linked with pain.Its that habit of movement that triggers
your pain alarm system.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

Addressing is anything that might be sensitizing you. Ask yourself:

1. Does your pain seem to be worse even when you are doing less?

2. Is your pain worse after stressful days at work or when you have less sleep or when you might be feeling anxious?

3. Does your pain seem to change when you have other changes in your life?

Recovery Strategy Tip:

Don’t expect to be pain-free 100% of the time. If you feel tight, sore or tense these are all normal too. What is a problem is how we react to these normal sensitivities. Sometimes we have a little bit of normal pain but then we can be told that some muscle isn’t working, your posture “sucks”, you are out of alignment or you are told that it’s bad to have those normal aches and pains. These secondary things can make our normal aches and pains worse and amplify them.

Role of the perceived need for protection

In the great self-help book “The Explain Pain Handbook: Protectometer” David Butler and Lorimer Moseley talk about the idea that anything in your life (or brain) that contributes to you feeling like you need protection will contribute to you having pain.

Depression, anxiety, rumination, fear of movement, a low sense of control, the loss of meaningful activities or poor coping strategies are factors that might influence your sensitivity and ongoing pain.

Athletes are more likely to get injured when they have a lot of physical/mechanical stress. They are also more likely to get injured when
having poor sleep or higher levels of anger/hostility. Just because psychological factors or the brain is involved does not mean the body is not important or the pain is imagined.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

Perform a self-audit of the things that contribute to your pain sensitivity (things you perceive as something you need to protect yourself from). You can have a lot of physical, mechanical, emotional and social stressors and have no pain. But at some point, a sudden increase in one of those stressors or a new stressor puts you just over the edge and now you have pain. We need to keep that cup from overflowing to stay out of pain.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

Exercise, resuming hobbies, starting more physical activity or going out with your friends can be general strategies that essentially make you healthier and can help with desensitizing.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

Most people in pain will have been told they have:

- bad posture

- weak glutes

- tight hips

- altered muscle firing patterns

- bones/joints out of place

- muscle knots or scar tissue

- muscle imbalances.

For the vast majority of you, these things are either untrue or even if partly true most, likely irrelevant to the pain you feel. Pretty much every assumed dysfunction (posture, tightness, weakness, structure, degeneration) can exist
in people without pain. Pain is poorly explained by your strength. Exercise, physical activity and things that make you stronger can be helpful for pain. However, they are usually helpful for pain because of reasons other than changes in strength. For example changing how you view your body, from viewing it as weak or frail, to being capable of adapting and being strong can help with pain. Or simply because exercise is an analgetic (reduces pain perception).

Habituation — the diminishing of an innate response to a frequently repeated stimulus.

The opposite of sensitization is habituation.

When you get into a Hot Tub or a hot shower, initially, it feels incredibly hot and almost unbearable. But over time we adapt and habituate and no longer feel that it is too hot. In fact, you might end up turning up the heat. This is habituation.

When you see someone doing karate and kicking a hard object over and over they will report that they have no pain. They still have nociception. Those danger/irritation signals are still being sent but we process and modulate them and no longer have pain. This is habituation.

It means that we can start doing the things that are important to us. Even
doing some things that hurt a little bit. Because pain does not always mean damage. And doing meaningful activities, and building a tolerance to those activities can lead to habituation and less pain.

You might still have those danger signals from your tissues but over time you slowly change your response to those signals. You might still have some pain but over time the meaning of that pain and how that pain
affects you can change as well. You can still live well with some pain.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

Build up your tolerance to aggravating activities.

Work on adapting to the stressors

We try to find the balance between doing enough to make us adapt and not doing so much that we overload our system, get sensitized and increase pain or get injured.

Examples of where stressing the body and person are important for healing and recovery:

• after a hip or knee replacement, people are up and walking the same day. There is still a lot of damage around that joint but it is the gentle movement that helps with pain and stimulates healing.
• after cardiac/heart surgery, a huge component of
  recovery is exercise. Exercise is a stressor on the heart and the heart responds positively to this. It heals, gets stronger and gets healthier.
• those with osteoporosis (weakening of the bones) need to exercise, strength train and put stress on their bones. It is the stress on the bones that makes them adapt and stay strong.

It is not as simple as just getting physically stronger. We add different
types of physical, work or emotional stress and we can slowly adapt to them. Over time we turn down our pain alarm because the stressors become less threatening. We adapt to the stressors that are placed on us.

One way to create changes in those systems is to stress yourself in positive ways.

If you want to get stronger, you must stress your muscles, tendons and nervous system by doing more than you are used to.

If you want to go on a 20-day hike through the mountains, you have to slowly start building up your tolerance to walking and climbing.

If you have a stressful job, you might notice that what you thought was stressful at work 10 years ago would actually seem easy now.

We recognize that you can adapt and that starting to slowly do things again is part of treatment. And for the most part, there may be nothing that is off-limits. Where we are cautious, is how much you do, what your beliefs about doing meaningful activities are and how you approach doing things again.

If you want to start running, hiking or bowling again then you and your therapist can find a way to start this soon. Physical stress (exercise, gardening, lifting weights) all cause slow changes in people to allow them to do more.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

We get pain or injured when we do too much too soon for us at that point in time. What is “too much too soon” is something that changes. The key is finding the right amount of stress .If you were a cyclist 10 years ago but haven’t ridden since it wouldn’t be wise to start cycling as fast and far as you last rode.

Look at or consider changing:
1. How much you are doing
2. How quickly you progressed
3. What are you currently ready for.

Strength and flexibility

Exercise, strength training and stretching can make you feel better. They have general health benefits that can help you desensitize. Exercise is an analgesic. But, for most people, you aren’t in pain because you are weak or tight.

An area, where flexibility and strength might be important, is if impairment in those areas does not let you move in a way to calm down your system.

For example, your lower back might be sensitive to bending if forward. One way to help is to avoid bending forward for a short period of time. But some people might have tight hamstrings or poor body control that doesn’t allow them to move in a way to avoid bending forward. They keep “poking the bear” and the bear keeps getting aggravated. For whatever reason, they are sensitive to bending, yet they keep bending and it keeps hurting. There is nothing inherently wrong with bending, but for this particular case, we might want to avoid bending for a bit to see if it helps “calm down” the back. In this case, the lack of flexibility or control stops the person from having that movement option.

Muscle weakness is important if you are trying to do things that need a lot of strength or force and your tissues can actually get stressed beyond their limits. But remember, pain is not primarily about damage.

Your spine is inherently stable and strong. It doesn’t take a lot of muscle force to keep it stable and strong during most activities. Most people will never get to the physical limits of their muscles. So to say that people are in pain because they are weak makes no sense and is not supported.

The same thing for flexibility. Flexibility is just not related to pain. People can be tight and have no pain and people can be very loose and have no pain. And vice versa. If you have activities that need you to be flexible then it is probably worthwhile increasing your flexibility. But if you never go to your limits of movement then there really isn’t a risk for injury or pain.

Posture and sitting

Sitting and your posture has consistently been shown to be poorly linked with pain. There isn’t one perfect posture that will let you sit without pain.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

If it hurts when you sit and you feel better when you move then you should move. You should also slouch if that feels better. Or lean back more if that feels better. There is no one posture that is best. You want freedom of movement and lots of different options. Don’t get caught up in ideal ways to move or stand.

You might think that slouching forward is bad, or that having a shoulder lower than the other is bad. But these things are normal. People have them and don’t have pain. When we research these ideas they are poorly related to pain. Look around at your friends with no pain. They are all wonky. Scoliosis, a bending of the spine, is not predictive of greater low back pain.

It is not unusual to be achy when sitting a lot. But the way pain works is that normal achiness can get amplified because of our beliefs or other sensitizing contributors. One solution, in addition to sitting differently and taking breaks, is to look at everything in your life that could be sensitizing you. Sitting may not be the problem. The pain just shows up with sitting.

Stress

Stress is not inherently bad and it is normal in our lives. You are going to have stress at work, you are going to have to lift things, walk upstairs and be physically active.

If you have a large increase in stress or something has changed in your life where it's harder to cope with stress then stress can increase your sensitivity and can increase your chance of having pain.

Not only is stress (and stress tolerance) related to the persistence
of pain, but it is also related to how well we recover. High levels
of stress can impair our recovery from physically taxing components of our lives.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

When you have a stressful week or two at work those aren’t the weeks to start adding a lot of extra or intense physical stress. Keep being active but to maybe do a little less intensity or amount than normal.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

You will also find that is normal to have random bouts of extreme and sharp pain. You might take a step on stair and feel huge pain in your knee cap. Or you might twist in your seat and feel a sharp stab in your back. All of these sensations are normal and don’t mean you have damage. Worry less.

Sleep

Lower levels of sleep have been linked with both increases in injury (e.g stress factors in athletes or the military) and increases in pain related to changes in the nervous system’s sensitivity.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

Sleep is protective. Sleep helps us heal and helps us recover. Sleep is a desensitizer. It builds our tolerance to all of the things that can sensitize us. Lack of sleep (less than 7 hours for some) or interrupted sleep can sensitize you. So maybe your pain should be 1/10 but consistently missing out on sleep amplifies that pain to 4/10.

Beliefs

Two very common psychosocial factors related to pain are Catastrophizing and Kinesiophobia.

Catastrophizing: “the tendency to magnify the threat value of pain stimulus
and to feel helpless in the context of pain, and by a relative inability to inhibit pain-related thoughts in anticipation of, during or following a painful encounter”. Catastrophizing will sensitize us and will amplify our
pain experience.

Kinesiophobia: “fear of movement.” You have pain, you move and your pain might increase. It starts out as a good thing. But after awhile that lack of movement or the fear of pain or the fear of movement can increase our sensitivity and turn up our PAIN ALARM.

Avoidance Coping

Avoidance of pain or injury is a normal and helpful response when you initially have pain. If you strain a muscle it is usually a good idea to avoid doing very aggressive activities or movements that cause pain in the short term. But when avoidance persists it can lead to ongoing or more pain.

Recovery Strategy Tip:

Do you think you might be avoiding doing certain activities or certain movements? If so, ask yourself these questions:

1. What movemements make me fearful?

2. Are there movements or activities that will cause damage or pain?

3. Why do you think those movements are painful or damaging?

4. What do you think would happen if you started doing those painful movements or activities?

Persistence Coping

“no pain no gain” and “pain is weakness leaving the body”…

It’s normal to have pain and sometimes we want to keep pushing
through pain to do the things that are important to us. But because we
get better at the pain the longer we have pain (i.e. sensitization and learning) we know there is a role for backing off a little and letting things settle down.

Persistence copers often take a good thing (keeping moving, being active) but just do it too much. Like with many things we want to find the appropriate balance between avoidance (protection) and persistence (exposure). You might find that you have habits of movement that continue to sensitize you and you don’t even realize you are doing them.

The process of pain (sometimes)

Signal path: Nociceptors -> Spinal cord -> Brain

We have sensors throughout our body called nociceptors. These sensors send these potential danger signals from the body to the spinal cord via nerves. They are signals from nerves in tissues that mean there is the POTENTIAL for tissue damage and perhaps you might want to do something about it.

Those nociceptors send that signal to the spinal cord for further processing. You can think of the spinal cord as a switchboard operator who can decide to send the signal up to the brain, turn up the signal, turn it down or it can even decide to leave that nociceptive signal at the spinal cord. Meaning the brain doesn’t get the message that there is a potential danger.

Let’s say the signal from the spinal cord does get sent up to the brain. Then your brain gets to make a subconscious decision about how important that information is. “Is there really a threat here?” If your brain thinks there is a threat then the pain will likely emerge. But none of this occurs consciously and it is not simply dependent on the signal from the spinal cord. Pain is multidimensional, meaning a huge number of things go into making that decision.

Nociception is just one part of the Bio — Psycho — Social model of pain. Meaning all areas of your life can influence pain. Physical and mental habits, emotional state, sensations, cognitions (beliefs about pain) and social aspects (social withdrawal is common with pain) are involved with persisting pain.

What do nociceptors do for us?

Nociceptors respond to physical, chemical or temperature stressors.

When you sit down your butt nociceptors will yell at your brain sometimes to get you to move. You might move around a little and there will be no more yelling. There wasn’t any damage it's just that the nociceptors got irritated.

If you put your hand near a fire your temperature nociceptors might decide to say something. They will send out a signal and maybe you will move your hand away and/or have some pain. You don’t have to have damage.

Nociceptors are like the lookout on a ship. They report when they see something. They don’t always care if it's a massive ship or some small boat. The lookout just says that there is something off in the distance and sends that information on to someone else. Someone else higher up then makes the decision about what to do.

“Tissue irritation or nociception is probably unavoidable but it doesn’t have to hurt.”

Role of the spinal cord

Nociceptors send their potential warning signals to the spinal cord.

The spinal cord can act like an amplifier where it turns the signal up and then sends it on to the brain or the signal can be turned down and less signal gets sent to the brain.

Based on descending (instructions from the brain) inhibition (turning down) or facilitation (turning up) from the brain the spinal cord can alter its sensitivity and alter how much signal gets sent up to the brain.

If we stay with the ship analogy: It is similar to the lookout telling the first mate that there is something in the distance. The first mate makes a decision to send this on to the Captain who then might decide what to do if anything. Sometimes the first mate can just decide to ignore it. If the Captain previously told the first mate that there might be Pirates in the area you bet that the first mate will send that information to the Captain. If the first mate is nervous because he ignored something in the past and got in trouble, that first mate will probably be sending on more information than he would otherwise (analogy for increased sensitivity of the system).

You can also look at the spinal cord as a switchboard operator or an executive assistant. Boss (you or your brain) has decided that all calls (signals) are really important (dangerous) so the switchboard operator (the spinal cord) can get a little too excited and start confusing signals that normally tell us about things like pressure or touch on a joint with nociception or potential danger. So now, instead of just feeling pressure the spinal cord sends up nociception signals to the brain. This is how
we sometimes feel pain when something would normally be felt as just pressure. Not cool but that’s how we work. We get better at thinking we need protection and we get better at having pain.

The brain’s decision making

The brain ultimately makes a decision about what to do with nociception. But like most decisions, it doesn’t arrive at this decision based on one factor. This is why pain is so much more than nociception. Nociception is just a potential warning signal. It is the same as the lookout yelling that there is something in the distance. The brain is like the Captain of the ship and Captains often have a whole situation room to advise them. The Captain will make a decision about that signal based on her past experiences, where the ship is, what has happened previously and from insight from other officers. The brain works the same way.

Expectations, past experiences, beliefs, attitudes and emotions can all influence how much or whether you have pain. This is why for the same information (e.g. same nociception) you can have vastly different pain responses.

If the brain/captain is concerned with the information from the lookout the captain can ask the lookout to be hypervigilant and tell the first mate (the spinal cord) to keep sending more information up and order the engine room to increase speed and for Tiller operator to turn the ship.

But fortunately, the captain can also suggest that while that information is a little bit important it is not too important. It's not worth freaking out and creating a lot of pain. Here the captain can send descending inhibition of nociception. Essentially, telling the first mate “don’t worry about those lights. We understand what they are and there is no need to protect the ship with any evasive action”.

With persistent pain, the captain (brain) and the whole crew stay on high alert.

Cortical Re-organization — Your distorted body map

Has your painful body part ever felt weird? As if it is out of place? Off balance or something just doesn’t feel “right”? You might feel weaker or almost as if you just can’t control that body part as well.

Pain does odd things. One thing it can do is influence how the brain controls movement and how you perceive your body. All of us have something like a map of our body in our brains to know where our body parts are and how to control them. This is called representation. With persisting pain that representation or that map can become distorted. Less precise. It’s like spilling coffee on a real map.

When you move you can make that map more precise again. You “learn” about your body part again. You sop up that spilt coffee. This is why movement and not avoiding physical activity could be beneficial. Athletes have known this for years.

Subscribe to get followup articles on chronic pain recovery!

Recap

Changes in your body are just one factor in your pain. To help with recovery, you want to consider all the factors that might affect you, and make you sensitive and then consider all the things that you can do to help you tolerate those sensitizers.

Many people might think that pain means you need to stop doing everything in your life and if you keep persisting you could harm yourself. There are rare cases where this is true but often rest and avoidance is the opposite of what is needed. When you have pain or injury it might actually be best to get moving again, start exercising or resume your hobbies.

Education and knowledge are the first steps in problem-solving your own pain predicament. Learning about pain helps change how you think about your problem and can help you start planning out your own personal recovery strategies.

TLDR

1. Research — Notice cool problems to solve around you. Act on things you think would be cool to build.
2. Evaluate & shape— Evaluate ideas from various aspects and shape them into a prototype or at least a sell sheet that can be a basis for customer feedback.
3. Validate — Validate through pre-orders. Show the prototype or the sell sheet and ask for money if they say they are interested. If they are not willing to pay for the pre-order ask what is stopping them and adjust based on the feedback.

1. Research

Take your time. Go out into the world, collect information, talk to professionals in various verticals, and notice something that looks interesting. Something that brings more fun or less suck in the world. Removes friction or hassle. Live in the future and look for what’s missing. Ask yourself “what problem do I wish someone else would solve for me?”

Solve your own problems

Prime your mind to catch opportunities when encountering information while you live your life. Don’t “think up” the idea but “notice” the opportunities as a background process in your mind. Turn off the filters that usually prevent you from seeing opportunities. Notice the things that bother you. Start to question things.

Why is your inbox overflowing? Because you get a lot of emails, or because it’s hard to get an email out of your inbox? Why do you get so many emails? What problems are people trying to solve by sending you emails? Are there better ways to solve this? And why is it hard to get emails out of your inbox? Why do you keep emails around after you’ve read them? Is an inbox the optimal tool for that?

The advantage of accepting things as they are is not just that it makes life (locally) more efficient, but also that it makes life more tolerable. You’ll need to sacrifice a bit of that.

The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they’re something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing.

…work on a problem you have… ensures the problem really exists.

…many founders build things no one wants… Because they begin by trying to think of startup ideas. — Paul Graham (link)

An aspect of the founder’s skill

Things you know how to do or things you don’t know how to do and consider hard will also be an invisible filter for you as you come up with ideas. Learning new skills will unlock new opportunities in your mind.

A good way to trick yourself into learning new skills as well as noticing ideas is to work on projects that seem like they’d be cool even if you don’t see them as a potential business. You’ll build things that are missing.

Just as trying to think up startup ideas tends to produce bad ones, working on things that could be dismissed as “toys” often produces good ones. When something is described as a toy, that means it has everything an idea needs except being important.

“Knowing how to hack also means that when you have ideas, you’ll be able to implement them. That’s not absolutely necessary (Jeff Bezos couldn’t) but it’s an advantage. It’s a big advantage, when you’re considering an idea like putting a college facebook online, if instead of merely thinking “That’s an interesting idea,” you can think instead “That’s an interesting idea. I’ll try building an initial version tonight.” It’s even better when you’re both a programmer and the target user, because then the cycle of generating new versions and testing them on users can happen inside one head.” — Paul Graham

Other mental filters

There are two more filters you’ll need to turn off if you want to notice startup ideas: the unsexy filter and the effort filter.

Paul Graham wrote about Effort Filter in an essay called Schlep Blindness, and it means a tedious, unpleasant task. That’s where the whole passive income schpiel is based on. Starting a successful startup is going to be fairly laborious no matter what. Even if the product doesn’t entail a lot of schleps, you’ll still have plenty.

2. Shape and evaluate (or skip and play around)

Once you have an idea, do not get excited. Evaluate if this one is worth your time — unless you consider it your playground.

What is a business fundamentally?

Every single business in the world does these 5 things:

• Creates something of value for other people or organizations.
• People know that you exist and that you have something to offer. This is why you should be interested in what I have. And people go “Yes, I am interested in this.” (aka. marketing)
• Prospects give you money for the thing you offer.
• Delivers value to the customer in a way that makes them happy.
• Spends less than it spends and it is enough for the business owner to continue.

Common ways bad ideas for a business will fail long term

1. “I can’t find people who are interested in what I offer.”
2. “People say they are interested, but no one seems to buy from me.”
3. “I can’t seem to generate enough revenue or profit for me to continue with it.”

Evaluate the idea.

This is a two-way process - just like when you go on a job interview you check if they are a fit for you and you are a fit for them. Here are some aspects to take into consideration:

1. Urgency — how needed is a solution?
2. Size of the market — How many people need it?
3. Pricing potential — How big of a margin can you have?
4. Cost of customer acquisition — How much will it cost to get customers?
5. Cost of value delivery — How much will it cost to create this thing and keep it running?
6. The uniqueness of the idea — Is there basically the same thing being used?
7. Speed to market — How quickly can we create it?
8. Up-front investment — How much money do I have to put into it upfront?
9. Upsell potential — Will I be able to sell additional things?
10. Evergreen potential — How long will it stay relevant without major investments once created?
11. Personal fit- Is this something I want to be doing/creating?

P.S.: I have an incoming post about a similar framework to evaluate an idea from “The new business road test” by John Mullins (a good book recap).

When you have an idea for a startup, ask yourself: who wants this right now? Who wants this so much that they’ll use it even when it’s a crappy version 1.0 made by a two-person startup they’ve never heard of? If you can’t answer that, the idea is probably bad. — Paul Graham

Aspects of competition

People usually compare solutions through these aspects so take them into consideration when creating your solution:
1. Efficacy
2. Speed
3. Reliability
4. Ease of use/understandability
5. Flexibility — how many things can it do? How many use cases?
6. Status — how do others perceive the customers
7. Aesthetic appeal
8. Emotion — happy feelings/personal touch/ease of use
9. Cost

It’s exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors — so rare that you can almost discount the possibility. So unless you discover a competitor with the sort of lock-in that would prevent users from choosing you, don’t discard the idea. You don’t need to worry about entering a “crowded market” so long as you have a thesis about what everyone else in it is overlooking. Your thesis has to be more precise than “we’re going to make an x that doesn’t suck” though. Focus on the users. — Paul Graham

Shape the idea

Shape what the idea will look like when it is serving customers. Create a prototype or a sell sheet to use for gathering customer feedback.

Prototype examples

Most people know what a prototype is. Here are some examples of prototypes I created for my clients:

• Clickable prototype of a web app: Rent linen for Your Airbnb Rental
• Hacked up a half-manual functional prototype for a storage marketplace: We sent a Google Form to potential buyers. When they fill it out it generates and sends me the email template I can send to warehouses to get the price quote. I also built a google sheet where I could type in the address and using Google maps API calculate and order a list of warehouses from closest to farthest. Then I manually sent emails to the ones close enough to make sense asking them for a quote. This helped us get the first order.
• A working web app to help you track if physiotherapy is helping in reducing your chronic pain as well as noticing patterns (what helps reduce pain): https://pain-tracking-app.flutterflow.app/?refferal=gqodSrHEN1gLZWfjhKTlcqPuIV72

What is a sell sheet?

A sell sheet is basically a piece of paper that describes the thing we want to create, what it does, how it benefits you, this is how it is appealing, and its price. You can use it as an alternative to a prototype when a prototype is too expensive for you to make.

Example of a sell sheet I created when working with Microbium — Microbiology lab in creating their product MPN Analyser:

Imagine you have just renovated one part of the water grid and want to check the water status. Head to a location, capture a sample or two, and return to the office where you have a Microbium incubator and a set for easy testing.

You open the Microbium package. You find a bottle containing a pre-dosed reagent to which you add a sample of water. Close the bottle and mix. Pour the mixture into a special container with compartments, and carefully place it into a Microbium incubator, where the container rests for a further 24 hours. After exactly 24 hours results are available. The type of bacteria, if present, can be readily understood from the colour of the fluid in compartments (sometimes even before 24h). The bacterial count can be calculated by counting the coloured compartments and looking at the table provided with the package (exactly after 24 hours). You can also leave the Microbium incubator to calculate a positive result as soon as it appears and reads the final result after 24 hours. You can then read the result at any time on the device screen.”

Because it is a disposable tester, you discard it afterwards. If bacteria were detected, this is hazardous waste, so pour ethanol or bleach in it, leave for 30 minutes and then discard the tester.

Current status:

- Chromogenic method (No colour — no bacteria; Y — Coliform; G — e.Coli).

- Detects from 1 bacteria up to 60 bacteria per 100ml of water. Very accurate.

- The price is 5€ per test for end-users at the moment.

- The product is in the process of patent protection pending. We will have the first tests available for you to try out [date].

- Production starts around [date].

- There is a possibility that the testing container could be reusable and the price could go down because of it. Therefore we will provide disinfection fluids in the kit.

This helped us generate initial leads for sales and distribution.

3. Validate it

Ok, I’ve got a sell sheet or a prototype. Now what?

Overall in validation, the point is to close real sales as quickly as possible. Basically, your job here is to collect pre-orders. That is what real validation is. That is how you know if you are onto something.

Show the prototype or a sell sheet to ideal customers and ask them “Do you want this?” Give/show the prototype/sell sheet to ideal prospects. Real people who are in a position to buy this. People you think this is perfect for. The more perfect the customers, the higher quality feedback you will get. And you need to ask them “Is this good for you?”. And in a good situation, people might say “Yes, this is a good product and I would be willing to buy it.”

And then you ask them in some way “Can I have your money?” The minute they need to pull out their wallet, their minds can change extremely quickly. This way you will figure out if people are actually willing to give up something to get this thing you want to make and if they are not willing to pay, ask them “What is holding you back from that?”.

Tip: If it’s a pre-order you can give discounts or extras in exchange for being the first customers. Or a commitment to give the money back if you don’t deliver the product/service.

Sometimes this approach of asking for money is not likely to work or be useful in your specific situation. In that case at a minimum you need to collect email addresses (or other relevant personal information). If they are not willing to trust you with information, they will never give you money. This way they are saying “I’m interested, let me know when more information is available.”

When a startup launches, there have to be at least some users who really need what they’re making — not just people who could see themselves using it one day, but who want it urgently. — Paul Graham

4. Go out there and fail

It takes time to come across situations where you notice something missing in the world that you want to create. And often these gaps won’t seem to be ideas for companies. Just things that would be interesting to build. This is why it’s good to have the time and the inclination to build things just because they’re interesting.

Big part of this article is based on Josh Kaufman’s talk accessible here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzjbSXC6COE&ab_channel=MicroConf

Kaj je UMUX-Lite (UMUX in SUS) ocena?

• System Usability Scale (SUS) is a ten-item questionnaire administered to users for measuring the perceived ease of use of software, hardware, cell phones and websites.
• Usability Metric for User Experience (UMUX) is intended to be similar to the SUS but is shorter and targeted toward the ISO 9241 definition of usability (effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction).
• UMUX-LITE is a shorter version of UMUX with an all-positive questionnaire.

Zakaj meriti SUS ali UMUX-Lite?

“Usability predicts customer loyalty: In general, we find SUS scores predict around 40% of why customers recommend software and websites as measured by the Net Promoter Score. Detractors have an average SUS score of 67 (slightly below average usability) and Promoters have an average score of 82 (well above average usability). In independent, large datasets, we’ve seen that you can estimate the Likelihood to Recommend question used in the Net Promoter Score (a 0 to 10 scale) by simply dividing the SUS by 10. For example, a SUS score of 72 would predict an LTR response of 7.2.” — 10 Things to Know About the System Usability Scale (SUS) — MeasuringU

UMUX-LITE Questions:

1. System’s capabilities meet my requirements. (Rate: (1 — Strongly disagree; 7 — Strongly agree))
2. System is easy to use. (Rate: (1 — Strongly disagree; 7 — Strongly agree))

Kalkulacija končne ocene:

AVG UMUX-LITE = AVG FOR ALL USERS (((“Ocena #1” — 1) + (“Ocena #2” — 1)) / 12 * 100)

SUS Comparison calculation = (UMUX-LITE * 0,65) + 22,9

Standardni odklon za št. uporabnikov: SQU ROOT((SUM USERS (“USER SUS Comparison calculation” — “AVG SUS Comparison calculation”)2 ) / Num. Of users)

Primerjava z drugimi sistemi s SUS oceno:

Najboljša primerjava bo z oceno drugih sistemov ki jih so vprašani uporabljali.

Tukaj za primerjavo ocene glede na obstoječe študije:

Vir: The Pros and Cons of the System Usability Scale (SUS)

Vir: What Every UXC Client Should Know About SUS Scores

Odprta vprašanja ob izvedbi tovrstnih testov:

• To what other systems should we compare the results?
• Can we have them test the competitive system? If not we will have them rate it by memory.

Links:

• Measuring Usability: From the SUS to the UMUX-Lite — MeasuringU

Na mojo srečo so bili na UE Črnomelj dovolj ustrežljivi, da sem lahko prišel na vrsto še isti dopoldne, kljub potrebnemu predhodnemu naročanju zaradi COVID-19.

Po fotografiranju za osebno v ELFOS foto studiu, kjer so mojo fotografijo naložili v sistem, da jo lahko UE uporabi za moj dokument sem se odpravil na Upravno enoto.

Tam smo naročili pohitren postopek izdelave in dostave, ki sem ga z veseljem doplačal. Naslednji dan je bil moj potni list s hitro pošto dostavljen na upravno Enoto Črnomelj, kjer sem ga lahko prevzel.

Glede na druge zapise na spletu, bi lahko dobil Potni list še isti dan, če bi mi uspelo v Celje do 12:00 vendar je v mojem primeru hitra dostava naslednji dan zadostovala.

Kljub zapisu na spletni strani zdravstvenega doma Črnomelj o postopku naročanja na PCT testiranje, sem mnenja, da manjkajo informacije za samoplačniške.

Če potrebujete PCR test za vaše poslovno (ali turistično) potovanje, ga lahko opravite v ZD Črnomelj.

Na test se naročite tako, da pokličete na telefonsko številko urgence ( 07 30 61 718 ) in se naročite na termin. Ker dokumentacijo (v času pisanja tega članka) pripravljajo 1 dan v naprej, boste najverjetneje morali poklicat in se naročiti še 1 dan prej.

Na klicu sem ugotovil, da je teste možno opraviti od ponedeljka do sobote. Testiranje je ob 9:00. Cena testa je 100€.

Kako je s testiranjem v Zdravstvenem domu Metlika nisem preverjal. Predvidevam, da bi bil lahko proces isti.

The next scheduled delivery window was in 4 days.

The driver arrived late to Ede, Netherlands. We are not sure of the delay, but the warehouse is known for very strict scheduled deliveries. If you are late for your delivery you need to book a new time slot. This time window could be anywhere from the same day up to even 5 workdays later. This time the next delivery was in 4 days (at 6:00 in the morning).

Looking for a solution better than sleepovers

Our client was used to this. She knew that in the last resort the driver would sleepover as it already happened a few times in the past despite.

They looked for transport companies nearby, but they didn’t do scheduled deliveries. They contacted their nearby partners and managed to find one about 100 km away that could finish the delivery for them.

Since the dispatcher knew us and that we might be able to help them, she sent a request for temporary storage and delivery over the order form.

In 30 minutes we had a warehouse that was only 30km from the final destination for a lower price.

This was our first order. It was not smooth. But we got better and the client still saved money.

In this first order, we did not know from the start that:

• This was a scheduled delivery. In the order form, we didn’t ask about the type of delivery.
• That the delivery was at 6:00 in the morning (before most warehouse work hours). Now our form includes the delivery time window.
• That some of the cargo was not on pallets (miscommunication when the loading was in place). We learned to double-check with clients.

What was the cost?

The starting price was 269,50 € for warehousing and delivery or 110 € for warehousing only. It increased to 330€ for scheduled delivery and warehousing.

The final price for 3 day storage, scheduled delivery, outside of work hours and increased cargo amount was in the end 430€ (all the prices include a discounted service fee of about 10%).

Despite the increase of the price, the offer we found was still at least 100€ better than the one from their partners.

Not to mention sleepover cost would be up to 1000€ or more.

We got better since then!

We improved our order form! You can order anytime you like.

In a few days, we will be launching direct online booking and INSTANT booking on StoringCargo.com!

Since then our network of warehouses increased to 200+ all over Europe! 75+ are already approved on the platform.

Can we help you solve your transportation emergency?

Submit a support order HERE and we will do our best to Provide good price Offers for Free in less than 60 min.

Dispatcher saves 100€ (and a 3-night sleepover) after truck missed a scheduled delivery was originally published in StoringCargo.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

No unloading because of the strike. Next order in 1h.

Their truck arrived at the client’s warehouse in Milan, Italy only to be informed that the company is on strike and unloading of the cargo will not be possible for at least 5 days.

For some reason, no one informed the transport company of the strike after confirming the delivery date for the cargo. Possibly unplanned strike? Really strange situation. They tried to find a solution with the client, but unfortunately, there was no luck.

This was a big problem for Dispatcher. He had a truck full of cargo for a failed delivery, no alternative warehouse and he accepted an order for loading new cargo in 1 hour to drive back from Italy. If he would not be able to find a solution by the end of the hour, the order would be canceled and on top, the company would need to pay the penalties.

So how did the Dispatcher solve the situation?

Using our service for finding temporary storage, pickup, and delivery anywhere in the EU.

The dispatcher contacted us and luckily, we found a warehouse 50km from the cargo delivery location. The driver successfully unloaded his truck and continued his way to fulfill the next order. All this in only 60 minutes. For the next 5 days, the cargo was safely stored in the warehouse and delivered yesterday by the warehouse truck.

A great solution if you think that in another case this could have been a huge loss of income — wasted fuel, cost of the driver, dispatcher’s time, lost order, penalties, and the truck would return home half empty.

How much did this cost?

Dispatcher paid 134,00 EUR (50€ for storage and 84€ for delivery).

Fortunately for the Dispatcher, the customer paid these costs, but the stress is still there.

What do you think of this story? Was there a better solution? What would you do? Let us know in the comments below.

Can we help you solve your transportation emergency?

Submit a support order HERE and we will do our best to Provide good price Offers for Free in less than 60 min.

Dispatcher avoids delay and penalties after rejected unloading of cargo because of a strike was originally published in StoringCargo.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.