Marty Hamilton

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.

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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.

• 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.

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When I was researching this topic, our chief appraiser gave me a couple stories to illustrate it. I’ll use these stories as we go along.

A few weeks ago, he received an assignment to appraise a property for a pre-foreclosure. In the assignment conditions, it explicitly stated not to have contact with the homeowner.

He inspected the property from his car, so he wouldn’t draw unwanted attention. As he was finishing, the homeowner came out and asked Jared what he was doing. Instead of getting into it with the homeowner, Jared started his car and left.

That might have been the end of the story. But, the homeowner jumped in his car and followed Jared for several blocks before giving up the chase.
This is a reminder of the risks of appraising, especially in sensitive situations. It’s also a great illustration of confidentiality in appraising. If Jared had engaged the homeowner, he would have violated the terms of the assignment.

There are two reasons that must exist for appraisal data to be confidential. You must have both to be confidential.

1. The client (the lender) specified that the appraisal was confidential. And although the homeowner is a party to the loan, he wasn’t part of the assignment; and
2. The data is not available from a public source.

Confidentiality in USPAP

If you read through the FAQ for the Ethics Rule in USPAP you’ll see a section on what is confidential and what is not. The Appraisal Foundation issues guidance for appraisers. For a few years, they have included information about what appraiser can, and cannot, share.

Let’s review some of the information about confidentiality in appraising.

Physical Characteristics and Assignment Results

An easy way to determine what appraisers can (and cannot) share is to categorize the data. You can sort information into two buckets: Physical Characteristics and Assignment Results.

Let’s say you’re asked to provide a copy of a workfile to an attorney for a case. He wants you to work as an expert witness to strengthen his client’s valuation results. As you think about what he’s asking, you think through several implications of his request.

In your workfile, there could be confidential information from other assignments. You have an obligation to safeguard private information. As stated in the confidentiality section of the ETHICS RULE,

“An appraiser must protect the confidential nature of the appraiser-client relationship.“

(emphasis, The Appraisal Foundation).

But the question is which parts of your workfile are confidential and which can are not. Here’s a quick tip: Physical Characteristics are not confidential and Assignment Results are.

Physical Characteristics are usually not confidential because they can are observable or measurable. Physical Characteristics may even be available from a public source. Assignment Results are confidential because they involve professional judgment and analysis.

If you want to share a full workfile, you have to contact your client(s) to get permission. Otherwise, sharing your results violates USPAP guidelines. If you can’t get permission to share confidential information, you must decline the assignment. Or you can provide a sample report or a redacted version.

USPAP states you cannot disclose assignment results to anyone other than

• the client;
• parties specifically authorized by the client;
• state appraiser regulatory agencies;
• third parties as may be authorized by due process of law;
• or a duly authorized professional peer review committee except when such disclosure to a committee would violate applicable law or regulation.

Physical Characteristics

What are some examples of physical characteristics?

Remember, Physical Characteristics can be observed or measured. For example, the number of bedrooms or square footage. Physical characteristics are “facts to be found,” which are not open to interpretation.

Other Physical Characteristics include

• address
• square footage
• number and type of rooms
• dates of construction or improvement
• wall colors
• bathroom fixtures
• heat or air conditioning

Assignment Results

Assignment Results are analyses, opinions, or conclusions based on appraiser knowledge. If you perform a study about the effect of a feature on a property, your conclusions are confidential. If a home has functional problems you determine affect value, it is an assignment result.

To illustrate the difference between Physical Characteristics and Assignment Results, here’s another story.

Jared received an assignment to appraise a home in a small town in Utah. When he got to the home for the inspection, he found that it backs to a busy railroad. It also had no covered parking. He finished his report and provided it to the lender. The appraisal concluded that the value of the property was less than the listing price.

Several days later, he got a call from the listing agent asking about the appraisal. He didn’t share any assignment results with the listing agent. But he did share that some of the property’s unique features could affect value. The fact that the yard backed onto a busy railroad track is an observable fact. As is the fact that there is no covered parking.

The listing agent chose the “comparables” in her CMA to justify the seller’s asking price. She didn’t take into account the obsolescences in the property. She knew the property was recently remodeled and priced it to recoup some of those costs. But she missed that the properties she chose all had covered parking. She also didn’t account for the railroad tracks.

Jared could share that the external obsolescence and functional obsolescence affected the appraisal. He could not share that the effect was negative and the extent to the negative effect. Those were the results of his analysis and were confidential. If the listing agent wanted to see the appraisal, she would have to get permission from the lender.

Sometimes, situations like this become a gray area. Participants [in the transaction] want to understand the steps you take. They’re interested in your analysis, the results, and the impact on the value opinion. But you need to safeguard the client’s confidentiality requirements.

Conclusion

It’s important to remember the Confidentiality section of the ETHICS rule.

• An appraiser must protect the confidential nature of the appraiser-client relationship.
• An appraiser must act in good faith with regard to the legitimate interests of the client in the use of confidential information and in the communication of assignment results.
• An appraiser must be aware of and comply with, all confidentiality and privacy laws and regulations applicable in an assignment.

You may be wondering how confidentiality affects appraisers in the same office. We will cover this topic in a future post. In the meantime, refer to FAQ 50 – 78 in the current edition of USPAP.

*The properties, agents, appraisers and situations depicted in this post are illustrations. Any similarity to actual persons living or dead, or properties, standing or demolished, is not entirely coincidental.