Should you be reading this right now? Is reading this column the best use of your time? Did you decide sometime recently that you were going to devote the time right now to reading this? Or instead should you be ___________ (fill in the task)?
Notice how easy it was for me to distract you. As soon as you read “should you be reading this right now” your mind wandered, wondering what else you should be doing. Maybe this is the second time you’ve come back to read this column, because you immediately thought of something you should be doing instead.
Maybe reading what I have to say here is the best use of your time. Possibly there’s nothing more pressing for you to be doing. Regardless, I want to make the time you spend reading here well spent and more. I want it to get you thinking about how you spend your time as a rental property owner and manager.
You were not sure if you should be reading the column at that particular moment because it was something that you hadn’t planned or scheduled; it was something that just entered your consciousness. How do you correct that?
I am a time management nut. I have read numerous books and articles about time management. I subscribe to three time-management email newsletters. I know a lot about how to do time management. It hasn’t helped me much, I just know what I should be doing. I am still about as disorganized as I was before I began studying time management.
One salient concept sticks in my mind, though: Wherever you are, be there. That means concentrate on the thing you are doing at the moment, and do not think about what you should or would rather be doing instead. If you are working on a rental property, give it your full attention so you can do a first-class job of it and forget nothing. If you are writing an ad, think about nothing else until you have finished it. If you are interviewing an applicant, pay full attention to the interview, and stop painting the wall in your rental property until you are through with your prospect.
By concentrating on the thing you are doing you will be surprised how much more you think of and get done during the project.
Too often when we are in the midst of a project our minds are somewhere else or only half there. That opens the door for mistakes that can cost us money or result in accidents.
Drifting minds are a universal problem. In one of the time-management email newsletters I get Dr. Don Wetmore provided this solution to the problem of the drifting mind:
“Perhaps, it is 4:00 p.m. and I have to work on a long, tedious and boring project. I want to leave at 5:00 p.m. but I start to chew up the time searching for pads of paper, getting coffee, etc., until about 4:20 p.m., when I have license to say ‘Well, it’s too late to start on this.’
“Sound familiar?
“When this occurs, I chain myself to the desk. (I do not use a real chain because people would think I was really weird.) I use an imaginary chain and tell myself I cannot move until this is done. I will also give myself a positive treat or reward at the end. It is a silly mind game, I know. But it also is a silly mind game to chew up the time. At least this has a positive benefit.”
Is reading this the best use of your time? I don’t know, but chain yourself to it, think about it, now go and give your full attention to your next project. Wherever you are, be there.