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Marty Hamilton

Updated for 2021: How to Get Things Done When Everything Feels Important

October 19, 2021 by Marty Hamilton Leave a Comment

It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Henry David Thoreau

We’re busier than we’ve ever been. How often have you talked to a friend about how busy you’ve been? How many important items do you have to get done? It’s one of those funny (not funny-haha) paradoxes. We have so many tools out there to help us but they never seem to help us feel more at ease.

(Over the past few months many of us really are busier than ever before. This post pertains to a non-Covid-19 world.)

Is Everything That Important?

How often have you run into a friend and asked how they are only to get the response “I’m so busy” or “I’ve got so much to do”? Or my favorite email response: “Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. Things have been crazy around here.”

I caught myself in that trap recently when I went to lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in years. I walked in a couple of minutes late and (before I said anything else) I apologized for being late. Then I explained how I was so busy at work and how I never had time to do anything. As we spoke, he voiced some of the same concerns.

Be Ruthless With Your Time

First off, you’re not Genghis Khan, don’t be ruthless with the people around you. A recent study of office workers found that most workers only have about 72 minutes of uninterrupted time each day. Quick math – that’s only about 15% of an eight-hour work day. And it’s even less for people who don’t work typical hours.

When you understand how little time you actually have to work it’s easier to put things into perspective. With that in mind, you can ruthlessly decide on your top priority. Now you can focus on bigger-picture goals.

If you overestimate the time you have to get work done each day, you may also underestimate time leaks. Small time and energy leaks have bigger consequences than you probably realize. The time you spend finding your keys. The email you replied to immediately, even though you could wait. The perfect tweet that takes 10 minutes to craft (you know the one with the clever images and wordplay). These superfluous things can disrupt your flow and sap your energy. And the next thing you know, you’re waking up at three a.m. to get some time to yourself.

Make Use of Systems

By now, you’ve heard all the advice about waiting until a specific window to reply to non-urgent emails. This is one example of creating systems to save mental energy. But you can create systems for other tasks. Get a container for your keys so they’re always in the same place. Use a social media management program so you can set aside time to create multiple posts at the same time. If you write posts at the same time, you’ll notice that your Twitter zingers will be easier and more creative.

Creating systems will help you save time on infrequent tasks too. How often do you forget the steps it takes to do tasks you only do once a month or a few times a year?

For example, whenever I get low on printer ink I spend a few minutes looking for the ink code when I order it from Amazon. It’s only a couple of minutes, but it throws off my groove and I have to spend time getting back to what I was doing.

via GIPHY

I decided to create a system for it. Now I save the ink number on my computer (and Amazon remembers it for me too). I use a program called Stickies to create notes that I can find easily. There’s also a Windows version called Sticky Notes. Here’s a link to get it.

Priority Matrix or Eisenhower Matrix

“Most things which are urgent are not important, and most things which are important are not urgent.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

One famous system is the Eisenhower priority matrix. Created by Dwight D. Eisenhower and popularized by Stephen Covey in his “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, you divide your tasks into four quadrants.

The priority matrix is nice for visualizing the tasks you have to complete. That said, you need to be honest with your ratings. It’s easy to classify everything into Quadrant I but all your tasks are not Urgent & Important. One tip is to use the due date as one of the criteria for your ranking. The closer the due date, the higher the task on the priority matrix. Here’s a short video on how to set up a priority matrix to get things done.

Relative Prioritization

Another way to organize your tasks is to rank them against each other. This is a version of the system Google uses to give you search results. They use thousands of factors to rank search results against each other. The data they use is the background information they can get from a website. When you rank your tasks you can use your background knowledge of the tasks to make your decisions.

Here are the steps you would take if you have 10 unique tasks.

  1. List all 10 tasks using a bullet list
  2. Assign each task a number based on the relative importance of the task. Use 1 for the most important and 10 for the least important.
  3. You can only use each number once.
  4. Dive in and start completing tasks.

A technology tip for relative prioritization is to use a program with a “Kanban” view that allows you to drag and drop tasks. Here are some recommendations.

Organizing everything that's important with tools.
  • Trello
  • Microsoft Planner
  • Monday

What About Interruptions?

I know that many of you are saying that no matter the systems and tools you use, you can’t get away from interruptions.
Touché.
There are some ways to lessen the impact of unanticipated time-sucks. Adam Rosenfeld has a framework to help.

  1. Keep a notebook handy. I write interruptions down on a mind map.
  2. If they fall into the context of work, I set a to-do accordingly earliest for the next day – this day is already booked.
  3. If they require more involvement, I set a to-do to review the item during our weekly leadership meeting.
  4. If I can’t effectively respond in the moment (focused work, taking care of kids, resting), I ignore the interruption. If it’s really important, it’ll come back again.

Your time is valuable and you have a right to prioritize it however you want. You know enough about your work style and your task list to make decisions. So, whatever system you put into place, trust your instincts.

via GIPHY

Filed Under: Appraisal Business

Becoming Indistractable

April 29, 2021 by Marty Hamilton Leave a Comment

Book Recommendation – Indistractable by Nir Eyal

Most appraisers are on the road a lot. I understand the need to stay engaged while driving. My go-to in my car is to listen to podcasts and audiobooks. (Along with the occasional baseball game if I can find one.)

A few weeks ago, I came across Indistractable by Nir Eyal. It’s a book with practical tips on how to be more present. He also spends a lot of time talking about putting our phones down. I love the irony of listening to that on my phone. And it’s not lost on him either.

A short background on Nir

In case you’re wondering who Nir Eyal is, here’s a short bio. You can learn all about him at his website: nirandfar.com.

Nir is an expert in behavioral design. He has been a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. As an entrepreneur, he founded and sold two tech companies. And more recently, he has started writing books. His first book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products is a mainstay in the business world. Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life was a bit of a reaction to the methods in Hooked. 

As you might have guessed, Indistractable focuses on getting rid of distractions to follow through on your intentions. I feel like that’s something we could all use.

One of the reasons I recommend Indistractable is because it contains doable suggestions. Too many of this type of book get too “touchy-feely” for me, and I lose interest…fast. 

Another reason is that Nir uses casual language and relatable examples. Who among us has never missed what someone said because we checked our phone? And how many times has checking your phone taken you down a rabbit hole? I know it happens to me, and I bet it happens to most of us.

Chess Strategy

The Four Strategies to Become Indistractable

Nir’s strategies focus on four key areas.

  1. Mastering internal triggers
  2. Making time for traction
  3. Hacking back external triggers
  4. Preventing distraction with pacts

I’ll briefly discuss these key areas and give a few examples.

Mastering Internal Triggers

Drawing from psychology, Nir argues that we allow ourselves to become distracted to avoid discomfort. And we create habits from actions that provide relief. If we look at the real reasons we spend time distracting ourselves, we can change them.

To become indistractable, we must find the cause of the distraction and overcome it.

Eyal tells the story of Zoe Chance, a marketing professor who got hooked using a pedometer (of all things). She realized later that she used it to distract herself from a difficult time in her life. Her experience led her to this powerful realization.

Most people don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that distraction is always an unhealthy escape from reality. How we deal with uncomfortable internal triggers determines whether we pursue healthy acts of traction or self-defeating distraction.

Think of that. Even walking with a pedometer can become a distraction. And it can lead to insights about ourselves.

Becoming indistractable doesn’t mean we’ll get rid of discomfort. Discomfort has a basis in evolution. If we didn’t feel dissatisfaction, we wouldn’t seek accomplishments. 

We can manage distractions by putting a different spin on internal triggers. Instead of beating ourselves up for giving in to distraction, learning to acknowledge it and move on can be freeing. 

Counterintuitively, resisting an urge can make the desire to give in stronger. And it can turn into a vicious cycle. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the author of Anna Karenina among other books, illustrates this point.

Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that cursed thing will come to mind every minute.

Eyal reveals four steps to manage disruptive or intrusive thoughts.

  1. Look for the emotion preceding distraction
  2. Write down the internal trigger
  3. Explore the negative sensation with curiosity instead of contempt
  4. Be cautious during liminal moments

Making Time for Traction

Think about the person you want to be. Do you follow through on your commitments? Do you make time for the people and things that are important to you? Becoming who you want to be is what traction is all about. 

Eyal encourages us to make time. He champions a method called “timeboxing.” 

In its simplest form, timeboxing helps us plan our time and entering it into a calendar. With timeboxing, you assign a certain amount of time to a task and complete the responsibility within the time you set aside. One of the recommendations is that you make the time visual. (This will resonate with anyone who has a collection of highlighters.) By visualizing the time blocks, you can see all you schedule with a glance.

Your schedule becomes sacrosanct. Once you enter something on your calendar, you must do it.

A practical example is setting aside time for communicating with others. You’ve heard of scheduling time throughout the day to check emails. Timeboxing recommends that you schedule time each day to check your email. Outside of those times, you don’t check your email. 

It takes self-discipline to keep to your schedule. But don’t worry, you can review and revise your plan. Although, you should stick to your schedule once you have it locked in.

Hacking Back External Triggers

Ask yourself about the last time your phone beeped. Was it something that you needed or something extra? If it was something you needed, it was serving you. If not, you were serving it.

One of the problems with our smartphones is that manufacturers and app creators are good at getting our attention. One of the most insidious inventions is the notification center. Think back to Dr. Chance. One of the reasons she became engrossed with her pedometer was its push alerts. Each time she got one, she felt pressure to get a few more steps.

Eyal advises us to 

  1. Uninstall apps you haven’t used in some time
  2. Shift potentially distracting apps from your phone to your desktop
  3. Move apps you check mindlessly away from your home screen
  4. Change the notification settings for each app

Preventing Distraction with Pacts

This advanced technique works best after you’ve implemented the other three strategies. 

Pre-commitments can keep you from being distracted by removing a future choice. The three kinds of pre-commitment you can use to build traction are

  • Effort pacts;
  • Price pacts; and
  • Identity pacts.

Effort pacts help you stay engaged by making behavior more complex, for example, by placing your alarm clock across your bedroom so you can’t hit Snooze without getting out of bed.

Alternatively, price pacts place a monetary cost on your commitment. If you don’t make a change, you lose money. You can add even more pressure by committing to give money to a cause you disagree with. 

Price pacts may not always be worth it. Use these guidelines before you agree to start.

  • Price pacts aren’t a good option for behavior with external triggers you can’t escape. Don’t commit to stop biting your fingernails unless you plan on getting rid of your fingers.
  • Price pacts should only be used for short tasks.
  • Entering a price pact can be scary. The amount should keep you motivated but not put you at risk of becoming destitute.

Identity pacts are clever agreements you make with yourself. In psychology, identity is a powerful force. By labeling yourself with the identity, you can prime yourself to act. For example, if your goal is to get in shape, label yourself as an athlete. One of the prerequisites for most athletes is to be fit. By saying “I’m an athlete,” you start changing your self-image.

Eyal is on to something with becoming “Indistractable.” By removing distractions, you can make the most of your relationships and opportunities. And you’ll ultimately find more control in your life. 

If you want to learn more about Nir Eyal, visit www.nirandfar.com.


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Filed Under: appraiser information, Book Recommendations, General News

The Road Ahead for Uncertain Times

January 27, 2021 by Marty Hamilton Leave a Comment

DataMaster Pro Podcast preparing for uncertain times

If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that we have to be comfortable with uncertainty. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything to prepare. (Even if the future is anything but predictable.)

Recently, we held a webinar to discuss what appraisers can do in uncertain times to thrive in the future.

This is the first episode of our podcast. So we thought we’d share it with all of you.

Jared Preisler, SRA and Keven Ewell joined us to talk about changes to the appraisal industry with the pandemic. They discuss the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s new RFI on changes to appraisal forms. They also share resources you can use to feel less uncertain.

https://fast.wistia.com/channels/q1qpcfyrwn/rss

Filed Under: Appraisal Business, News Tagged With: podcast

How to Get Things Done When Everything Feels Important

August 6, 2020 by Marty Hamilton 1 Comment

It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Henry David Thoreau

We’re busier than we’ve ever been. How often have you talked to a friend about how busy you’ve been? How many important items do you have to get done? It’s one of those funny (not funny-haha) paradoxes. We have so many tools out there to help us but they never seem to help us feel more at ease.

(Over the past few months many of us really are busier than ever before. This post pertains to a non-Covid-19 world.)

Is Everything That Important?

How often have you run into a friend and asked how they are only to get the response “I’m so busy” or “I’ve got so much to do”? Or my favorite email response: “Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. Things have been crazy around here.”

I caught myself in that trap recently when I went to lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in years. I walked in a couple of minutes late and (before I said anything else) I apologized about being late. Then I explained how I was so busy at work and how I never have time to do anything. As we spoke, he voiced some of the same concerns.

Be Ruthless With Your Time

First off, you’re not Genghis Khan, don’t be ruthless with the people around you. A recent study of office workers found that most workers only have about 72 minutes of uninterrupted time each day. Quick math – that’s only about 15% of an eight-hour work day. And it’s even less for people who don’t work typical hours.

When you understand how little time you actually have to work it’s easier to put things into perspective. With that in mind, you can ruthlessly decide on your top priority. Now you can focus on bigger-picture goals.

If you overestimate the time you have to get work done each day, you may also underestimate time leaks. Small time and energy leaks have bigger consequences than you probably realize. The time you spend finding your keys. The email you replied to immediately, even though you could wait. The perfect tweet that takes 10 minutes to craft (you know the one with the clever images and wordplay). These superfluous things can disrupt your flow and sap your energy. And the next thing you know, you’re waking up at three a.m. to get some time to yourself.

Make Use of Systems

By now, you’ve heard all the advice about waiting until a specific window to reply to non-urgent emails. This is one example of creating systems to save mental energy. But you can create systems for other tasks. Get a container for your keys so they’re always in the same place. Use a social media management program so you can set aside time to create multiple posts at the same time. If you write posts at the same time, you’ll notice that your Twitter zingers will be easier and more creative.

Creating systems will help you save time on infrequent tasks too. How often do you forget the steps it takes to do tasks you only do once a month or a few times a year?

For example, whenever I get low on printer ink I spend a few minutes looking for the ink code when I order it from Amazon. It’s only a couple minutes, but it throws off my groove and I have to spend time getting back to what I was doing.

via GIPHY

I decided to create a system for it. Now I save the ink number on my computer (and Amazon remembers it for me too). I use a program called Stickies to create notes that I can find easily. There’s also a Windows version called Sticky Notes. Here’s a link to get it.

Priority Matrix

One famous system is the priority matrix. Popularized by Stephen Covey in his “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, you divide your tasks into four quadrants.

The priority matrix is nice for visualizing the tasks you have to complete. That said, you need to be honest with your ratings. It’s easy to classify everything into Quadrant I but all your tasks are not Urgent & Important. One tip is to use the due date as one of the criteria for your ranking. The closer the due date, the higher the task on the priority matrix.

Relative Prioritization

Another way to organize your tasks is to rank them against each other. This is a version of the system Google uses to give you search results. They use thousands of factors to rank search results against each other. The data they use is the background information they can get from a website. When you rank your tasks you can use your background knowledge of the tasks to make your decisions.

Here are the steps you would take if you have 10 unique tasks.

  1. List all 10 tasks using a bullet list
  2. Assign each task a number based on the relative importance of the task. Use 1 for the most important and 10 for the least important.
  3. You can only use each number once.
  4. Dive in and start completing tasks.

A technology tip for relative prioritization is to use a program with a “Kanban” view that allows you to drag and drop tasks. Here are some recommendations.

Organizing everything that's important with tools.
  • Trello
  • Microsoft Planner
  • Monday

What About Interruptions?

I know that many of you are saying that no matter the systems and tools you use, you can’t get away from interruptions.
Touché.
There are some ways to lessen the impact of unanticipated time-sucks. Adam Rosenfeld has a framework to help.

  1. Keep a notebook handy. I write interruptions down on a mind map.
  2. If they fall into the context of work, I set a to-do accordingly earliest for the next day – this day is already booked.
  3. If they require more involvement, I set a to-do to review the item during our weekly leadership meeting.
  4. If I can’t effectively respond in the moment (focused work, taking care of kids, resting), I ignore the interruption. If it’s really important, it’ll come back again.

Your time is valuable and you have a right to prioritize it however you want. You know enough about your work style and your task list to make decisions. So, whatever system you put into place, trust your instincts.

via GIPHY

Filed Under: Appraisal Business

Exterior Only Appraisals & Temporary Flexibilities

May 8, 2020 by Marty Hamilton Leave a Comment

Exterior Only Appraisals & Temporary Flexibilities

This week, the National Association of Appraisers (NAA) sent an email with some feedback from Danny Wiley of Freddie Mac. In his post he talks about Exterior Only appraisals and the newly-extended temporary flexibilities.

With the recent announcement by FHFA that the GSEs are extending appraisal flexibilities through June 30th, we’d like to amplify information from Danny Wiley of Freddie Mac. Earlier this week, Danny posted a crucial comment on social media to help appraisers understand the details of the new appraisal flexibilities.

He stated:

As we are examining the appraisal reports that are being submitted under the COVID-19 flexibilities, the number one issue we are seeing is related to exterior only appraisals and the analysis/reporting of the interior condition.

For GSE work, it is NOT acceptable to simply assume that the interior condition is “average.”  Nor is it acceptable to assume that the interior condition is similar to the exterior condition.  Many non-GSE users do allow (and even instruct that) appraisals completed with such assumptions, but these assumptions are not acceptable for GSE work.

The appraiser MUST have a data source for the interior condition.  The data sources could include any of the types of sources normally used for comparables.  Or, under the revised COVID-19 certs, the data could include information provided by the owner, occupant, agent, etc.

If one cannot obtain a data source for the interior condition, then the appraisal should not be completed.   However, the intent of adopting the revised certifications and allowing use of data by the property owner was to minimize the number of cases where the appraiser could not obtain such data.

As you can see, the GSEs still expect valid information for the interior of the property, including a valid source for the information.

MLS photos in DataMaster give you a reliable source for interior information.

One of the best sources of interior subject property information is the MLS. With DataMaster, you can connect directly with your MLS’s back-end database, including hundreds of data fields per property and MLS photos. If the subject property is listed in the MLS (or was recently listed), DataMaster can access it. DataMaster allows you to easily view and include MLS photos as a data source to make specific decisions about the interior condition.

DataMaster is committed to providing you with the most complete data to produce credible, defensible appraisal reports. You get the tools you need to create high quality reports quickly and accurately.

As part of the process, DataMaster saves your data into your digital workfile. You can access your report information at the click of a button. And you’ll have a complete record of your decision-making process. DataMaster’s patented processes save you time and help you spend more time analyzing information, instead of moving data. In fact, DataMaster moves about 95% of the data you need for your appraisal assignments.

Access to MLS information is one way DataMaster supports you as an appraiser. DataMaster gives you the right data at the right time to make the right decisions.

Click here to get the data you need with DataMaster.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: appraisals

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