“He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign.”
Victor Hugo
French dramatist, novelist, & poet
1802-1885
With the constant industry changes and demands on today’s mortgage originator, it’s hard to keep chaos from happening. As chaotic as it is, we have to look to the positives that come from chaos and change in general.
Now is a great time to revisit your life goals and determine whether you’re doing what you really want to do in your career and in life or whether you need to make a life change. Once you gain clarity on what you want to BE, DO and HAVE you can then re-focus on bringing order back into your life by adopting habits that have been proven to lead to a more balanced and productive life.
Work/life balance all but goes out the window for most originators as they try to survive and thrive in challenging times. In my own quest for discovering work/life balance, I have learned that success in this arena comes down to three daily habits...
1) We must know our highest priorities and block out time for them in our calendar
As mortgage professionals we live our lives according to appointments. I’ve personally learned that if I don’t have both personal and professional priorities on the calendar there’s a good chance it won’t get done. There will always be more to do then we have time for in a day, so we must know our priorities and stay focused on spending time with them by putting them in our calendars or we will fail to achieve any sort of work/life balance.
2) We must manage our commitments and client expectations
Most successful leaders I know (including myself) have the bad habit of over promising and over committing because we have a false sense of reality and what we can do in a day. We mean well but this leads us to compromise other commitments we’ve made to ourselves, family members, our support team and/or our clients and referral partners.
For example, I often hear originators who say they’re too busy to exercise. Well, if you’ve made a commitment to exercise four times a week and a client calls you right before your scheduled exercise time you have a decision to make. Your answer will be determined by your commitments. If you’re committed to exercising and you value the benefits of doing so you’ll manage that situation accordingly. If you’re not committed to exercising you’ll complain you don’t have enough time to exercise.
Emergency phone calls, loans in crisis and urgent situations often become how we manage and live our lives in the mortgage industry. The fact is you have a choice. You can be proactive and make an adjustment to your commitments and schedule or you can continue to react according to what happens. Low priority activities that are perceived as urgent situations can rob us of work/life balance and the achievement of our personal and professional goals. By better managing your commitments and not over extending yourself you will live a more balanced and productive life.
3) We must finish our day before it begins
Jim Rohn, a famous business philosopher, once said “If you fail to create your own plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan and guess what they’ve got planned for you? Not much!” An effective time plan is a simple way of designing what I call the “Perfect Week”. Planning your “Perfect Week” begins by establishing specific appointments in your weekly calendar for each of the areas you’d like to spend time in.
By blocking out specific sections of your day/week/month for each of your highest priorities and commitments you’ll begin to fill your schedule with the activities that mean the most to you (and your business). This process has provided my coaching clients with a systematic way of managing their most important activities and nearly guaranteeing their highest level of performance when the plan is followed.
This time blocking activity allows the originator the opportunity to schedule their priorities into a calendar and begin to create a success system for them to operate from so if they just follow the plan they’ll be successful. It also gives an originator the understanding that they cannot do everything and that they must make a conscious decision about what activities to take on and what decisions they need to delegate, eliminate or schedule for a later date.
To create your time plan simply take out a calendar or make a table with the days of the week at the top and the hours of the day in the furthest column to the left. Breakdown your time in 30 minute increments (i.e. 5am, 5:30am, 6am) and begin filling out each block with a priority that you need to make happen to live out your “Perfect Week”.
I have found that an originator’s daily schedule can be broken down into 7 categories of time and I’ve listed these seven categories below in what I call my Originator’s Daily Task List. They are listed from highest priority to lowest priority and if you follow this plan each day and work from top to bottom you will live a balanced life and achieve great things in your career as a mortgage originator.
Personal Time – This may look different for each of us based on the stage of life we’re in but make sure this area is put into your calendar before you add the business related categories.
□ Faith
□ Family
□ Fitness
□ Friends
□ Fun (hobbies)
Executive Time – This is time spent ON your business vs. time spent IN your business.
□ Reviewed goals/personal life plan and updated as necessary
□ Prioritized my work for the day
□ Measured my performance from previous day/week/month/year
□ Met with team/assistant to discuss business growth objectives
Marketing Time – This is time spent on marketing related activities where you’re communicating with two or MORE people at a time.
□ Reviewed my marketing plan and scheduled marketing activities into calendar
□ Completed a marketing activity (email, newsletter, seminar, direct mail campaign, etc.)
□ Attended an group event (Associations, Chamber, Leads Group, etc)
Sales Time – This is time spent on sales specific activities where you’re communicating with two or LESS people at a time.
□ Followed up with current prospects and clients currently in progress for referrals/status
□ Pre-qualified a new prospective client
□ Closed a loan
□ Asked for a referral from 2 or more people or followed up on a referral request
□ Returned all calls/voicemails for the day
□ Contacted a new referral partner prospect
□ Followed up and added value to current referral partner
Processing Time – This is time spent on processing activities required to fulfill the sales you’ve made. This area requires clarity from management so you know what IS and what IS NOT your responsibility.
□ Priced a loan and/or submitted a file for automated approval
□ Submitted a complete file to processing
□ Resolved a processing related problem or issue
□ Ordered Title, Appraisal, Verifications on file(s) in process
Training Time – This is time spent on training and professional development activities where you’re improving your expertise and skills.
□ Listened to or watched a 30+ minute coaching/training webinar/podcast/conference call
□ Read an industry related book/article/blog for 30+ minutes
□ Attended a live seminar/training course on personal/professional development strategies
□ Reviewed the MyMortgageCommunity.com website for new strategies, tactics and ideas
Operations Time – This is time spent on anything that doesn’t fall into the above six categories. The faster you can implement these tasks the more money you will make and your work/life balance will improve.
□ Delegated a new operations/administrative related task to a co-worker/asst.
□ Automated a process or implemented a new technology into my workflow process
□ Created a written process for a standard task or responsibility
□ Emptied my inbox (online & offline) and filed projects/papers/emails into folders
□ Organized my work area for maximum effectiveness
Once you’ve completed your time plan using the above 7 categories as a guide, you should have a designated time for every priority and commitment in your life. Now, print this document out and place it in a place where you can resource it throughout your day so it becomes a habit or a way of living. It may also be helpful to transfer the information from this table into your everyday planner (i.e. Outlook, Day Planner, etc.) so you can schedule around the appointments you’ve set for yourself.
Next Steps to Create Work/Life Balance
Take a moment right now and block out some time this week (or month) to step back and establish (or review) your life and time plan. If you’ve already got a plan then get back to following it more closely and watch your business and your personal life begin to soar. Remember, those who plan to succeed usually do!
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