PART 2 OF 3 The Failure Cycle

Welcome back to Part Two of The Failure Cycle. Last month we identified the 7 Habits most likely to contribute to “the failure cycle”, now let’s discuss the first three in depth. 

• NO PRIORITIZATION SKILLS     

Not all “To Do” lists are equal; A successful list includes daily priorities and other items that may require your attention. If you are an architect designing your “perfect day”, how would it look? Have you created a written daily plan with the “perfect day” in mind? Developing a routine to “launch” the day in the first few minutes of each morning is a great start. No matter how organized your “perfect day” becomes, unplanned “emergencies” pop up at what seems like the most inopportune moments. How do you respond – are you strategic or reactive, the calm or the storm? Creating a blueprint prioritizing tasks that have the largest impact on your business, not only allows you to reach your goals with efficiency, but it makes room for unexpected distractions. We suggest focusing on 12 weeks at a time with our written GPS time management tool.

• PROCRASTINATION 

Sometimes we procrastinate because we underestimate how much we can achieve within a certain time frame and feel overwhelmed by tasks pouring in from every direction. A written daily schedule shows deadlines and maximizes efficiency. Query: If I gave you a free trip to Hawaii provided you board the plane by 8 am tomorrow, would you find a way to do it? Sometimes deadlines bring energy to actions shortening the amount of time required to “make it happen”. Prioritizing tasks and completing them without hesitation frees up time and allows you to catch the plane to paradise. Ohhh but also worth mentioning…. a calendar with no room to “catch up” or to breathe is overwhelming and restarts “the failure cycle”, so maintaining white space within your schedule is equally important to avoid procrastination.

• TIME BANDITS

We are robbed every day, and many of us often don’t even realize it until it’s too late to recover. Time bandits are the largest drain for a business, more so than profit or expenses. Rather than traditional time-blocking, we recommend a “workflow plan”. In the real estate industry we use an acronym NCAA, New clients, Current clients, Appointments and Administrative, when referring to workflow. While it is essential to touch on all four topics daily, the allotted time varies based on a “success list” we create at the end of each day, thus designating the importance of each task for the next day. Each flow topic expands or contracts depending on the list and your 12 week GPS plan. While considering your “workflow plan”,  perhaps the best time saving hack is a large, inexpensive digital clock kept within your peripheral vision. Glance at it regularly to assess the amount of time spent drafting that email, taking a call, or scrolling through social media; viewing time itself will guard from time bandits!

Be sure to grab next month’s copy in Real Producers Magazine for the final article of this series including discussions of the final four key factors of The Failure Cycle