“I had this visual of a Daytona 500 race after a crash. You don’t stop. You look at the pace car and you start moving again. And when things are cleared, you are ready to fly.”
An old high school friend (I’ll call her Joanna) just said these words to me after telling me what she did during the quarantine of Spring 2020. She is an accomplished real estate agent, and we had often discussed working together to set up a home office, work on her business systems, and help other agents. With things on hold, she got to work. Here’s what she did:
Finally set up that space in the basement that she’d always thought might work as an office -- as opposed to the armoire in the dining room where she'd been shoving papers for years.
She designed a storage system for her client files, paperwork, and marketing materials. All at her fingertips when she needs them now - no more digging!
She took a real estate coaching class that she’d been interested in for a long time.
She created a series of checklists for the various stages of her business transactions.
When quarantine ended, the real estate market started going gangbusters, Joanna was ready to fly.
What did it mean to fly? She had plans, goals, and was ready to serve clients the minute they walked into the virtual door. Her space is making her more productive. The order she created is saving her time. The systems she designed are making her more efficient. Instead of looking for things, drowning in paperwork, and unable to concentrate in a dedicated and comfortable space, she is able to plan, set goals, and chart a path toward them. Fixing her space and systems is making her a better real estate agent.
It didn’t take months or weeks for her to get more productive. It took the world stopping for a minute for her to finally take action. But the world almost never does that though, does it? So how can you do that? Most of us have nagging ideas of the things we could, should, or MIGHT do to improve things in our work or home. But we feel too busy. “I’ve got no time to clear out my filing cabinet” or “I can’t learn how to use a digital calendar”. But the truth is, the time you take to do these things will set you on a path to NOT doing them over and over.
Your time, energy, and attention should be dedicated to your passion, to using your unique abilities to serve yourself, your clients, your family. Efforts like what Joanna did in quarantine GIVE you time. They help you simplify your work or life and quite often they take a lot less time than you think. When you have a checklist, and a place for everything you free your brain from dealing with all the little things so you can DO big things.
Set your intention. Block out the time. Plan your systems and prepare to fly.