Category: 2. Getting Stuff Done

All this month, I’ve been writing about how to Get Stuff Done, in anticipation of a New Year (and a New Decade) just around the corner (34 days to go).

While I’m in the mood to increase productivity (including my own), I started reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, which provides an incredibly insightful look at how habits work and how to change them to have a powerful and positive effect on your life. This book has confirmed to me that I’m on the right track with my last few blog posts, but it’s made things even clearer. It’s exciting to learn more!

In Rules and Routines, I described how trying to make radical changes through sheer willpower alone was a recipe for disaster, so instead, you should start with baby steps by implementing simple Rules and then building on those Rules over time to create a Routine.

The Power of Habit refers to these baby steps as “small wins,” incremental achievements that give you a sense of accomplishment.  I love the term “small wins”!

Studies have proven that willpower is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. By achieving a small win, you are exercising your willpower, and getting stronger. In other words, just like exercising a muscle, willpower itself is something that is entirely within your ability to improve.

If you feel like your willpower is weak, start exercising it.

In 48 Days Until 2020 (34 days now), I wrote about taking a baby step towards establishing regular ‘Appointment with Yourself,” beginning with a weekly Business Planning session, a time when you will work ON your business, as opposed to working IN your business.

Have you done it? ⁉️

If not, how about you exercise your willpower right now and resolve to re-read that article and then implement the recommendations?

If you do it, you’ll achieve a small win, and know this:

BIG wins don’t happen without a series of small wins.

The exciting news described in The Power of Habit is how big wins start occurring very naturally and in unpredictable ways when you start exercising your willpower muscle. You can transform your entire life!

I’m going to leave it at that because I can’t do this book justice in a few paragraphs. It’s a highly entertaining read using real-world examples throughout to prove his point which is this:

“The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Here are the Amazon links for the U.S. and Canada.

Are you the type of REALTOR® who thrives on deadlines? You’ve procrastinated on that CMA all week, and now you’ve got 45 minutes to get it done. No problem! When you’ve got a deadline, you always come through.

There are two ways you can look at this:

1. When you’ve got a deadline, you’re able to get a lot of work done quickly and efficiently;
2. You leave everything to the last minute, and therefore the work is often not to the standard that you’d like.

Chances are there’s some truth to both statements. Sure, you got the CMA done, and it’s good, but half-way through the Listing Appointment, you realize that you’re missing some critical information. You messed up.

If you lose the listing, what’s the potential cost? Ten grand? Maybe more? All because you left the CMA to the last minute?

What if you had completed that CMA 24 hours before and then allowed yourself additional time to review and fine-tune it the next day? Wouldn’t that be better? ☺️

Yes, of course! But (insert excuse here).

“An excuse is simply a challenge that you’ve decided has power over you.” — Jen Sincero

No matter what your excuse, you are probably keenly aware that your self-management could be much better.

I use the term “self-management” because “time-management” doesn’t make any logical sense. You can’t manage time! Time marches on at the same speed for every one of us, no matter what. ⏳

Self-management is not merely important. It’s the #1 essential ingredient to success for EVERY highly productive person.

You want to know why that other agent produces twice as much (or five times as much) as you? Is it because they have more time than you? Nope! You’re both allotted the exact same 1,440 minutes per day. ⌚

They simply manage themselves better than you do.

If you want to improve (you do, right?), let’s start by utilizing your “skill” at meeting deadlines, and add in a few new complementary strategies:

1. Commit to getting better at time-blocking ‘Appointments with Yourself’ and honoring your own set of Rules and Routines.
2. Move your deadlines sooner. Always allow extra time for review AFTER your deadline, whether you think it is needed or not. Make this one of your Rules! ⏰
3. Start your workday as early as possible. I know that sometimes you’re up late getting a deal done, but otherwise try changing your routine to go to bed earlier and get up earlier. Early mornings are the most productive time of day because there are far fewer distractions. Don’t waste this valuable early-morning time doing routine stuff like reviewing your email. Instead, this is when you should focus on completing larger tasks.
4. For larger projects, break them down into bite-sized milestones. This way, you can feel the thrill of meeting your deadlines along the way. Saying you want a new website up-and-running in three months can sound like an impossible task, but if you break this down into ten or fifteen smaller projects with separate deadlines, that three-month goal becomes completely realistic.
5. Find an accountability partner. Let’s face it; Real Estate can be a lonely business. If you’ve got a good friend in the business, you can help each other by encouraging and holding each other accountable for each of your self-imposed deadlines.
6. Set rewards and consequences. Working towards small and big rewards can make your work more fun and motivational. Make a game out of attaching a reward to each one of your goals. You’ve got to be strict about this. If you don’t achieve the goal, you don’t get the reward.

This all makes perfect sense, right?

So, what are you going to do about it?

You know, we’re coming up to a New Year/Decade. If you want to make some real positive changes I suggest you re-read last week’s post 48 Days Until 2020, except be aware of this:

It’s now 41 days. And counting. You see how that darn clock keeps moving forward? ⌛

A gentle reminder: You haven’t accomplished ANYTHING by merely reading this post. You’ve got to DO something. Why not take a baby step right now, even if it’s just time-blocking an ‘Appointment with Yourself’ to review this and the last two blogs, one more time? You can take another baby step after that.

If it helps, think about a small reward you can give yourself for taking this first baby step. Now, go for it!

I’ll leave you with one more quote from Jen Sincero, “In order to kick ass, you must first pick up your foot.”

If you’re reading this on the day it was posted (November 14, 2019), you’ve got 48 days until a new decade begins on January 1, 2020. Do you have any New Year’s Resolutions planned?

Here’s a better question: Why wait?

If you’re planning to make improvements, whether personally or professionally, there’s no time like the present; I’ll show you how to get started, easily, TODAY!

When you think about it, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to expect that you’ll instantly change your ways overnight. You’ll go to bed with ALL your bad habits on December 31, and magically wake up the morning of January 1, with all new good habits? Uh-huh. Yup. Sure you will.

I think it’s great that you’ve got plans for improvement, but let’s give you an honest fighting chance at success.

It’s fine and good to set New Year’s resolutions. But, rather than waiting until January 1, start implementing one or two or three baby steps towards your ultimate goal, NOW! ⏰

This way, by the time 2020 comes around, you won’t be starting from scratch. Instead, you’ll already have adopted some new good habits, and your chances of success will be infinitely greater.

If you know in your heart ❤️ that you need to make some serious changes, but you feel yourself resisting and avoiding, here’s why:

In our crazy distraction-filled world, we are all constantly bombarded with information—some good, some not so good—and we’ve trained ourselves to “filter out” almost everything. After all, who has time to stop and try to differentiate the good stuff from the bad, and then to take the precious time that is required to put good, newfound knowledge into action? ‍♀️

Most REALTORS® are always in “reaction” mode, and they rarely —if ever—proactively set aside time for business planning. Think of yourself like a pinball, bouncing around haphazardly. Sure, you try to control the flippers as best as you can, but that’s not exactly PLANNING.

If this is YOU, let’s fix that right now. Here’s your first baby step towards having a far more organized business in 2020, and beyond:

Start by re-reading last week’s post Rules and Routines.

Set aside an hour (or 30 minutes, or 10 minutes), every week, for Business Planning. I’ll tell you what to do with this time in a minute, but first, you have to promise to follow the rules, as follows:

Master Rule #1 – If I set a Rule, I MUST follow it.

Master Rule #2 — I agree to treat ‘Appointments with Myself’ with the exact same level of respect as I would treat an “Appointment with my MVC (Most Valuable Client).”

I will prepare myself mentally beforehand, I will start on time and finish on time, I will turn off ALL distractions, and I will give the task my FULL attention for the FULL duration of the Appointment.

Master Rule #3 — I will set recurring appointments for the same time and the same day.  This rule ensures that you will form a habit, which is an essential part of the process.

You can decide the duration of the appointment and exactly when it will be. In this case, I suggest you start with a once-weekly appointment. Mornings are best, but you decide. If it makes you nervous to begin with an hour, start with five minutes, or whatever. I don’t care. Just get this habit started!

You won’t get much accomplished in five minutes, but if you follow all the rules, you’ll probably be surprised that you start to look forward to your Business Planning Appointment, and you’ll quickly expand the time.

For starters, I don’t suggest planning more than one hour per week or more than once per week. You can expand it later, but wait until you feel the urge to spend more time on it. I guarantee this will happen, but let it occur naturally. Do not spend more than the pre-determined time on your Business Planning Appointment. ⌛

Have you agreed to follow ALL the rules? This is essential. If you don’t follow the rules, you will NOT succeed. That I can guarantee.

Example: Your first Business Planning Appointment starts in five minutes, but you’re in the middle of doing something else, and you want to finish that first. OK, you’ve blown Rules #1 and #2. You fail.

If you want to succeed, you MUST honor the Rules!

Now is the time. To respectfully borrow from a famous phrase:

“It’s one small step for you. One giant leap for your business.”

I’m serious about this. Please stop reading this and schedule this vitally important recurring ‘Business Planning Appointment’ right now. Don’t worry about what to do with it, just yet. I’ll tell you when you come back.

(The theme from “Jeopardy” playing in the background)

OK! You’re back! Congratulations on making your first baby step towards completely recharging your business in 2020!

I’m dead serious about that statement, my friends. EVERY journey begins with a single step, and you just made your first step!

Now, what do you do with this time you’ve set aside? Simple:

1. Make a list of ALL the stuff you want to do better
2. Prioritize your list
3. Be specific about each goal that you want to achieve
4. Working backward, figure out each step you will need to accomplish to achieve each of your goals
5. Take the first step towards your top priority
6. Focus on one step at a time
7. Book more Appointments with Yourself to Get Stuff Done, as needed

Stick to your game plan. If it’s one hour per week, and if you honor your commitment, I promise you will be amazed at how much progress you make BEFORE January 1.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Improving your life through sheer willpower might work for some super-humans, but it’s a recipe for disaster for most of us. You try to do something; you fail, you feel discouraged, you stop trying.

On the other hand, establishing a few simple ‘Rules and Routines’ can add order to your life, and make you feel far more in control and more productive.

You can introduce ‘Rules’ incrementally as a way towards accomplishing a much bigger goal. For example, let’s set a rule towards a bigger goal of weight loss:

Weight Loss Rule #1 – No snacking after 7:00 p.m.

All you have to do is master that one rule for now. That’s it. And by the way, this is a good rule for everyone, whether you need to lose weight or not, because eating late at night interferes with your circadian rhythm. If you eliminate eating after 7:00, you’ll improve your digestion, you’ll sleep better, and you’ll wake up more energized.

If you’re a chronic night-time snacker and a 7:00 cut-off seems too challenging, adjust the rule to something you know you can do.  Make the cut-off time 8:00 or 8:30, for starters. Then, gradually move up the time in 15-minute increments until you’ve achieved your bigger goal.

Or, if that’s still too hard, be as creative as you need to be:

Weight Loss Rule #1 – Maximum HALF pail ice-cream, before midnight

You do need to utilize some willpower! The trick is to make it somewhat challenging, but not to overload yourself.

Do not introduce too many rules at once, and start with rules that are relatively easy to follow. As you achieve success, you’ll be ready to take on more challenging rules.

They say Rules are “made to be broken,” but that does NOT apply to Personal Productivity.

Master Rule #1 – If I set a Rule, I MUST honor it. 

Here’s the thing. You’re a solopreneur. You’ve got NOBODY to set and monitor the rules for you, so guess who has to do it?

Hint: Not one person in the history of the universe ever became a highly successful achiever without following strict, self-imposed rules.

If you genuinely want to be an achiever, agreeing to “Master Rule #1” is compulsory. Otherwise, there’s a different word for you. You’re a dreamer.

I know that’s harsh, but it’s time to get real. Snap out of it!

Here’s the good news: Learning to follow self-imposed rules is incredibly liberating because it removes all uncertainty from the equation. There’s no longer any internal debate about whether you’re going to do something, or not. All you have to do is follow the rules.

Once you set a rule, you can now eliminate from your brain the constant feelings of neglect and guilt over NOT doing what you know you need to be doing.

When you’ve successfully followed a rule for long enough, it will start to feel like an ingrained habit!

Now, you can go ahead and introduce a new rule!  For example, you’ve mastered Weight Loss Rule #1 (no eating after 7:00 p.m.).  How about adding this new rule?

Weight Loss Rule #2 — No sugary drinks, ever.

Or whatever. Pick something.

Guess what? You’re accomplishing things—one step at a time—towards a much bigger goal. You’re feeling good about the positive changes you are making, and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish over time.

What about ‘Routines’?

A ‘Routine’ is simply a recurring task that you perform at a pre-determined time-blocked ‘Appointment with Yourself.’

For example:

1. You send a report to all your sellers every Monday morning, beginning at 10:00 a.m.
2. You take care of your bookkeeping the first Friday of every month, beginning at 1:00 p.m.
3. You review your Prospect List every day between 9:00-9:15.

I suggest you make a list of ALL your routine activities that you KNOW you should be doing, but just keep a list for now. Do NOT try to implement rules and routines all at once.  ️

Before you implement ANY new routine, you must agree with Master Rule #2:

Master Rule #2 — I agree to treat ‘Appointments with Myself’ with the exact same level of respect as I would treat an “Appointment with my Most Valuable Client.” I will prepare myself mentally beforehand, I will start on time and finish on time, I will turn off ALL distractions, and I will give the task my FULL attention for the FULL duration of the Appointment.

Master Rule #2 is a tough one for almost all REALTORS®!

I completely understand! I suggest you work up to Master Rule #2 by introducing and mastering some easier rules, first.

For example, I just recently set a new rule for myself:

Tidy Office Rule – Tidy and Organize for five minutes every morning. ‍

As soon as I walk into my office EVERY morning, I set a timer for ten minutes, and I tidy and organize. I just started doing this, and it already feels great to work in a tidier and more organized space!

I’ve trained myself to follow my self-imposed rules so that this new Tidy Office Rule is already a routine for me. I walk in the office, and I set to work immediately, picking up where I left off yesterday.

This is just an elementary example of how you can use rules and routines to increase your productivity.

Think of one simple rule you can implement today as a stepping stone towards a bigger goal. 

Here’s a suggestion: The Real Agent Memo comes out early in the morning, every Thursday. How about you make it a rule that you will take the five minutes it takes to read it, every Thursday morning before it gets buried in your gigantic overwhelming backlog of email?

We can deal with your email problem another day! ☺️

I’ve got some good news for all you technical dinosaurs:

Don’t worry about it! ‍

It’s just not very important to be up-to-speed on all the latest techie stuff, to be a great REALTOR®.  In fact, if you’re continually re-inventing your business to accommodate the latest trend, it’s impossible to deliver a compelling and consistent message.

Real Estate is a relationship-based business, and you don’t need technical gadgets to build relationships.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t try your best to keep up with technical tools that can help run your business more efficiently. You should. Just don’t drive yourself crazy, adding technology for the sake of adding technology.

Sometimes, a low-tech solution could work better for you than a high-tech one.  For example, I still keep an appointment book.  That’s right; an actual book, made out of paper, that you write on, with a pen. ️

I like to be able to open my book and see everything I’ve got going on for the next week, all on a single page. Plus, I find it hilarious when I book an appointment with someone, and it takes me two seconds to write it in my book, and it takes them two minutes fumbling around with their phone. I sit and stare at them and chuckle to myself.

I’m not saying everyone should keep a written appointment book, like me. It has its drawbacks, too; for example, with recurring appointments. But overall, I’m very comfortable with my simple appointment book.

As for my “To-do List,” I do use a technical tool for this, but the name of it should give you a hint at what’s important to me. It’s called ‘Simpleology.’ It’s just a SIMPLE way to keep on top of all kinds of lists and to keep you productive and on-task throughout the day.

One of the best features of Simpleology is the ‘Dream Catcher’ function. This is where you write down whatever idea pops into your head and forget about it. This can be done on the home page, or with the App that works in conjunction with it. Then, you organize that idea the next morning when you go through the ‘Start my Day’ routine.

Before I discovered Simpleology, I used to send an email to myself whenever I thought of an idea.  Just do whatever works for you!

I do highly recommend ‘Simpleology’ for REALTORS®, by the way. It’s a super-easy way to keep yourself organized and focused on what you need to get done.

Like I said, go ahead and use technical tools that you are comfortable using. And it doesn’t hurt to push yourself a little bit. For example, if you know you should be using a spreadsheet to organize a list, and you don’t know how, just go to ‘The Google’!

“How do I use Excel?”

I just typed this into ‘The Google’ and one of the top results was this:

“How to use Excel: A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started.”

I clicked on this, and there’s a complete super-easy course that will tell you EVERYTHING you are likely to EVER need to know about using Excel. For free. You can learn the basics in less than ten minutes. ANYONE can do this.

For anything beyond this basic stuff, if you’re really not comfortable, then hire it out to a professional. You hire professionals all the time, right? For example, you don’t do your own photography, do you?

As I said, Real Estate is a relationship-based business. You should be spending more time establishing solid relationships with people, and less time driving yourself crazy, trying to implement technology that you don’t need.

More on building relationships next week.l

In 48 hours, I’m going to get on a bicycle and set out on an epic journey—220 kilometers—as part of the Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer.

If you’re young and fit, 220 kilometers may not seem like a huge challenge. But it sure is for me!

It was an even bigger challenge when I first joined Team Believe five years ago. I had several personal reasons to join the Fight to Conquer Cancer, but challenging myself to get into shape was one of them.

If I was going to have any hope of completing The Ride, I knew I would have no choice but to make some radical changes to my lifestyle.

Confession time: As a busy REALTOR®, I had completely let myself go physically. I was a big fat blob of mush. Imagine Fat Bastard (from the Austin Powers movies) riding a bike, and you’re not far off.

I’ll never forget my first practice ride in the spring of 2015. After five kilometers, I was not only completely winded, but my legs were screaming, “What’s this? Ex-er-cise? Stop this NOW!”

I thought to myself, “Oh boy, what have I done? I’m in big trouble here.”

By the way, this article is NOT going to be a lecture on getting into shape. It’s about something much bigger.

I’m not one to lecture on fitness, anyway. I smoked for half of my life. I was a mushy blob for MORE than half my life. I have other bad habits that I’m just now—finally—challenging myself to overcome.

We ALL struggle with our demons, and we ALL use excuses to hold us back from achieving our true potential.

“An excuse is simply a challenge that you’ve decided has power over you.” – Jen Sincero

I had gone all-in on The Ride, including publicly bragging to all my friends and family. Backing out was not an option. The wild boasting spree was before I went on that first 5K ride, by the way.

I started riding my bike three or four times a week. And, I started being more careful about what I was eating. I was a horrible junk food addict, so I began by simply eliminating junk food; then, I gradually adding a few more elements, such as drinking more water and not eating after 7:00 pm.

You don’t have to do it all at once, folks! If you’re having trouble getting started on a new habit, start with a baby step and build on it.

The pounds came off slowly but surely, and I gradually got in better shape. By the time that first epic ride came around, I was still scared stiff, but I was in FAR better shape compared to when I started training.

It was still the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I rode the last 20K on sheer willpower, with tears streaming down my face.

But I did it!

I’ll never forget the feeling of accomplishment and camaraderie with my team-mates when I finally crossed that finish line.

Since then, having committed to participate in this event every year, I’ve made fitness part of my routine. I now work out three days a week at Orange Theory, and I love it!

My old excuses for not having fitness as part of my life seem pretty stupid now:

1. I don’t have time.
2. I don’t have time.
3. I don’t have time.

Now, my energy level has improved so dramatically that I have way more time to accomplish the things I need to get done every day!

Maintaining fitness is a simple good habit. And, the critical element to EVERY good habit is CONSISTENCY.

If you never go to the gym, and then you go once for three hours, that’s a waste of your time.

This is true for practically everything worthy of pursuing in this world. Think about it.

To achieve CONSISTENCY, you need to learn to time-block ‘Appointments with Yourself’ and then HONOR your commitment to those appointments, just as you would honor an appointment with your best client.

It sounds easy, but it’s not, because as a REALTOR®, you’ve trained yourself to put everyone else’s needs ahead of your own. But by doing so, you are holding yourself back from achieving your potential.

If you go to a seminar to learn how to be a better REALTOR®, but you don’t schedule times to apply what you’ve learned, you might as well not even go.

Knowledge is useless without Action!

The first module of my upcoming online course is called ‘Getting Stuff Done.’ Why the first module?

Because I’ve discovered that most REALTORS® are terrible at ‘Getting Stuff Done.’ Most times, being a solopreneur is a new thing for REALTORS®, which means, for the first time, they don’t have someone else telling them what to do and when to do it. They haven’t learned self-discipline.

By making ‘Getting Stuff Done’ the first module, my students learn a few essential but straightforward work habits, which means they’re going to get FAR more out of the rest of the course.

It’s all about consistency, scheduling, and honoring your commitments with no excuses.

I used to dread going to the gym, but now I go to Orange Theory on specific days, three times EVERY week. I’ve learned to honor those ‘Appointments with Myself.’ There’s no self-debate about whether I should go or not. I just do it.

You can do the same with EVERYTHING you’re not currently doing, by simply learning a few necessary skills, and consistently applying them.

You can be reading this and agreeing with everything I’m saying, and absolutely nothing will change until you take ACTION.

The choice is yours. That’s the best and hardest thing about being a human.