Big Rocks First

So there's this physics professor standing in front of his class and he puts a big empty glass jar on the lab table. He then reaches under the table and grabs four or five baseball sized rocks and puts them in the jar. He tries to add another rock but there's no room for it. "Aha, the jar is full, right?" He smiles at the class.

The students, being freshman and knowing everything, respond "Sure!"

So the prof grabs a box of pebbles and starts dropping them into the jar. Most of the smaller pebbles trickle around the big rocks and fill in the spaces till they reach the top of the jar. "Okay now it's full!

The students hesitate and, this not being an Ivy League school, they're smart enough to sense a possible trap. "Well, sort of . . . maybe?"

"Excellent!" The prof now produces a bag of sand and pours it into the jar. The sand fills in all the spaces between the big rocks and the pebbles till it reaches the top of the jar. "Now it's full!" He grins and claps his hands.

The students--some of whom will become engineers and some CEO's and some IT guru's--nod and clap along with the professor. All but one, the student destined to become a successful real estate broker. She simply shakes her head and waits.

"Wrong!" The professor grabs a pitcher of water and pours it into the jar. At last, the jar is full!

The future broker has grasped the lesson. And her future success will largely be tied to her lesson learned, a lesson that can make anyone more successful, no matter their field.

Big Rocks First!

If we start with water, nothing else will fit. If sand, only water can be added, and even if we start with pebbles, there may never be room for those big rocks.

So what? you may be asking.

So what if those Big Rocks are in fact your most important daily activities? Those activities that our Peak Producers training--not to mention our basic real estate common sense--tells us are those activities we absolutely have to do on a regular basis--ie, make a Habit--in order to proactively generate referrals from our sphere of influence to build a consistent business? Pretty important rocks!

Yet all too often we find ourselves dealing with the pebbles--those details of transactions and serving our clients and responding to important calls and emails--that all too often fill up our jar so that we can't jam in a Big Rock even if we want to. While those pebbles are important in making our current clients happy, we all know what happens when we close all those sales and then look around and wonder where the next client might come from.

Of course don't even think about playing in the sand or splashing in the water--wasting time on needless emails or chatting with pals or checking out that new tennis racquet or carbon fiber bike! We may even miss a pebble or two if that's our focus and we all know how much time we waste every day.

The bottom line in terms of time management and productivity is that every day we can enhance our business and our lives by grabbing those Big Rocks first--prioritizing--those calls and cards and coffees and pop-by's with our A+ and A level advocates to keep the momentum of our business going and growing with proactive referrals. The pebbles can always fill in the gaps.

So grab those Big Rocks first!

David M. Hassler

VP, Director of Business Development

Make Sure You Get Your M.E.D.S!

March 27, 2015

Make Sure You Get Your M.E.D.S!

In our most recent Peak Producers training class, we talked about “The Attitude of a Peak Producer,” and Brian Buffini encouraged everyone to focus on a positive, consistent attitude to help us through the potential snares and pitfalls of the real estate business. His comments reminded me, once again, of Gino Blefari’s presentation at our Annual Business Conference a few weeks ago.

At our conference, Gino focused on time management and attitudes, and he made the point that in order for us to perform and live at our best, it’s crucial that, every day, we make sure we get our M.E.D.S.  No, not those little pills or powders or essential oils we may take, but an overall way of living to promote our health and wellbeing so we can be at our best. Here are Gino’s M.E.D.S:

M is for meditation or prayer. Gino carries his rosary beads in his pocket but his point is simply that we should ideally begin our day with some form of introspection and centering so that we ground ourselves before we plunge into that whirlwind of family and business and life in the 21^st century. If you can find even just five minutes of quiet practice to attend to your inner, spiritual, self each day, you’ll feel the difference.

E is for exercise. Yes, exercise can fatigue us, especially if we’ve been out of the habit, but if practiced regularly, it will not only improve our strength and conditioning, but it can also energize us. No matter where you are in your age or physical conditioning, you can find improvements in your wellbeing and your attitude by starting or enhancing an exercise program. Even just getting out and walking a bit can be a great way to get your E!

D is for diet. Of course, we all know this is important and we’ve all tried to “diet” in the sense of the word as a nasty verb for eating nothing but rice cakes and iceberg lettuce with no dressing! Yuck! The D in Gino’s M.E.D.S. really means what you eat over the long term and is reflected in changing our eating habits and behavior so that healthy eating becomes our norm, not torture. By the way, when we have a healthy diet, that occasional, rare, treat tastes far better than it ever did when we indulged on a daily basis! In his Peak Producers class, Brian Buffini notes that in our culture we actually don’t have an idiom for this positive approach to diet or business but we do have one for the opposite: Garbage in, garbage out!

S is for sleep. Have you ever told your sick child that sleep is the best medicine? We know it’s absolutely true and we really believe if that youngster gets a good rest they'll feel better in the morning. And yet, even though this “medicine” is free for all of us, all too often we forget to take a proper dose! Early to bed . . . you know the rest, right? Yet even if we turn out the lights fairly early, if we’ve just been watching an exciting TV show or playing a video game, chances are we won’t get a restful sleep since we’re still chasing those terrorists or wondering what will happen in next week’s show. Sleep is truly the best medicine and if you rise early you’ll also give yourself an extra hour or two for the M. and E. so you can focus on what’s most important to making your business—and your life—a success and a joy. Several brokers in our Peak Producers class have set goals for early to bed/early to rise and they’re sharing their results with their accountability partners!

Spring is on the way—even though we’re expecting snow today—and that whirlwind of serving our clients will reach gale force. Make sure you get your M.E.D.S. so you can enjoy the ride!

David M. Hassler

VP, Director of Business Development

Getting Things Done Redux

Last time we wrote about Gino Blefari’s great presentation on Time Management Tips and several of his top ten points address keeping a list and taking action. We all recognize the wisdom of those points—and have probably tried at some point in time to put them into practice—but the real problem is finding the right how!

We’ve written about David Allen’s book Getting Things Done in the past and have encouraged folks to grab a copy to see how that system can be a great help in managing not our time but our activities and our distractions. Now that Gino’s presentation has raised our Reticular Activation Systems a bit so that we’re more conscious, for a while, at least, of trying to implement some best practices to help us improve our efficiency and effectiveness, let’s take another look at GTD.

Allen’s primary point is that we get things done best when we can focus on the task at hand, free from those distractions. Rather obvious, of course. But he goes on to clarify that by distractions, he doesn’t simply mean a ringing phone or a barking client, but rather all those nagging little voices in our minds, interrupting and reminding us—constantly, it seems—not to forget that we have to run a CMA for that presentation tomorrow or call the brick mason to ask about that chimney repair by next Tuesday or, yes, to take the dog to the vet on Saturday and get to little Sally’s soccer match by 6.

In an earlier Playbook, we noted that Allen’s key is to make sure we have a fail-safe “bucket”—ie, Gino’s “list”—to store all our obligations and actions and information—both for our business and our personal lives—and we noted how Evernote can be the perfect bucket.

But how do you decide what goes in the bucket—and where?

Allen’s GTD model has a great flowchart for dealing with what he accurately calls “stuff,” ie, all the things we’re bombarded with daily, hourly, even by the minute. Basically he suggests that we think of ourselves as an In Box and go through the following process as we receive “stuff:”

The First question: What is it? That sounds a bit trite, but he really means that we need to quickly grasp “what” is asking for our attention rather than doing what we so often do: simply putting something aside and thinking we’ll deal with it later! Allen makes the point that by not taking a few more seconds and determining the real “what,” we’ve just put that item back on top of the pile of things that will eventually fall into our In Box again . . . and again, wasting more and more of our time.

The Second Question: Is it Actionable? Wow, is this “stuff” something we need to do anything about? There can only be two answers here, YES or NO! If NO, then ideally it should go right into the trash! But wait, what if it’s something we don’t need to take action on right now, but we might want to use it or do something about later? No problem, as Allen suggests we create compartments in our bucket where we can save such items for future reference. In the Evernote age, we can create a notebook or two for “Reference” items and maybe one for “Reading” where we can store that interesting article we noticed in Inman News but don’t have time to read at the moment it drops into our “In Box.”

If the answer is YES, it IS Actionable, we have a couple more considerations. One of Allen’s best moves is his suggestion that, if a “stuff” is Actionable AND it can be done in less than two minutes, DO IT RIGHT NOW! Don’t put it back on the pile of things that will have to again fall into your In Box!

If it will take more than two minutes, Allen recommends we need to make one more immediate decision: If we’re the best person to deal with the “stuff,” then we need to “Defer” it and add it to our project list of “Next Actions” or put it on our calendar if it’s a specific date. If we’re not the best person to deal with that particular “stuff,” we need to delegate it to someone else: a staff member, an assistant, and lender partner, a contractor, etc. and we need to make that delegation right away . . . if it can be delegated in less than two minutes!

There’s a lot more detail and some great examples in the book, of course, but the GTD system can really work and make your days and hours far more productive and far less stressful. I bet you can download the book from Amazon to your Kindle in less than two minutes . . .

David M. Hassler

VP, Director of Business Development

Gino Blefari's 63 Points of Successful Time Management

 “To know and not to do is really not to know.” – Stephen R. Covey

Actually, to know and not to do is probably worse than not knowing, since if we choose not to do what we know—and that we know will improve our business—then we’ve squandered our investment of time, money, and effort in the learning!

As we continue with our Buffini Peak Producers training in the Indianapolis office, all of the brokers involved in the class recognize that Buffini’s methods and systems will absolutely, without a doubt, enhance anyone’s business when they’re implemented. We also all recognize that the real struggle is in the ongoing implementation of these great tools and systems--the DOING!

So, it was perfect timing from Gino Blefari, CEO of HSF Affiliates, when he presented his 63 Points on Time Management at our Annual Business Conference last week! Gino recognized this stumbling block that impacts nearly everyone and urged us to take control of our time and actions. Here are his first ten points:

1.         As you go through these points on time management, don’t think about whether you’ve heard them before. Think about whether you’re applying the discipline to implement them. 
Wow, we all know how true this is!

2.             There are fundamental steps to great time management. Put these steps into daily practice, and you won’t believe how much you can accomplish in a regular workday. 
We’ve all probably done this before and know how true it is . . . so the key is how to stick with it!

3.         Email is there for your convenience. If it’s not convenient, don’t answer it. Guilty! I’ve just started closing my email server on my laptop when I’m working on something and only checking a few times a day. Not easy but I realize how much time I waste running through email, 98% of which is of no importance in my business.

4.         If you touch it, take action. 
Time management 101! If you can do this, you will immediately be more productive!

5.         If you spend just 15 minutes per day to revisit, readdress, or reread documents or emails, you will waste 97 hours per year where no action is taken. 
The consequence of not doing number 4!

6.         The key to great email management is to institute a company policy that insists on very descriptive subject lines for all emails. 
Wow, what a great idea! Let’s do it!

7.         When the subject of the email changes, the subject line on the email also changes. This is critical. Another fabulous idea! Come on, let’s do it!

8.             Concentration is like a muscle and it strengthens as you concentrate more. If you stop concentrating every time an email comes in or the phone rings, you actually lessen your ability to concentrate and you become less effective in any situation that requires concentration. 
So true, and we all know it don’t we?

9.              If you don’t keep a list, you are most likely a very reactive person. 
Another time management 101 point! And Evernote is the perfect way to keep your list and never lose it plus have with you all the time!

10.          Keeping a list will double your productivity right away. 
So true, so let’s give it a try!

So, to know and not do . . .

David M. Hassler

VP, Director of Business Development