Vacation Syndrome = When a planned vacation is imminent and anticipated that is when the demands on your time increase. Just when you are ready to kickback and relax everyone you ever talked to about buying or selling a home will call. It happens all the time and it can be a very, very good thing! When you get a little slow, schedule a vacation and all your problems are solved.
So how can I create this effect in my everyday work week? It’s simple really, stop trying to work 24/7! If you work everyday then there is no difference between yesterday and today and no difference between this Wednesday or this Saturday. Not really a difference between this week or next this month or next. In fact if you work 24/7 there are no real deadlines if you don’t get to it today it can always wait until tomorrow. It is a nightmare of inefficiency! You never get a break , you never rest and recharge and you can’t possibly do your best for your clients. You can go without sleep how do you expect to go without rest? You have no deadlines time loses it’s significance.
The reason vacation syndrome works is because you are focused on a date certain. If you have tickets for Hawaii and you leave at 6am on Saturday…nothing and I mean nothing is going to keep you from that goal. You become a model of efficiency, you can get more work done in the last 3 days before you leave than you did in the 3 weeks that preceded! Now if you take a scheduled day off (or two ask around most people get 2 days off a week ) you have an opportunity to create vacation syndrome on a small-scale every week. If you have scheduled to take off this Wednesday and have made plans then you need to be efficient in how you handle your work load Monday and Tuesday so your schedule can stay clear. You will come back on Thursday refreshed and energized and will be capable of accomplishing more.
OK this sounds good but my clients expect me 24/7, how do I handle that? I would suggest first that you accept that you need to have some business parameters and share them with your clients. We don’t deal with a great deal of real estate emergencies, we don’t need to be in constant contact. You should turn off cell phones and stop checking email at a reasonable time at night. You should share your scheduled days off with your clients (try it most will understand). You consider the advantages of voicemail ( I will address this in another blog). Once you have some basic business practices in place including your day off, know that you need some flexibility and that any real estate business model will hold up about 80% of the time. Stick with your schedule and 80% of people will go along with you for the other 20% be flexible or don’t work with them. Honestly though 80% control is probably much better than you are currently doing.
What do I do when someone says I want to see the house today and today is my day off? I would first define what a day off to you is. For me any day that I had no face to face meetings and did no proactive lead generation was a day off. I could answer calls or emails, I could talk shop, and as long as I could do it unshaven and wearing my fuzzy slippers I was good. If you need to be completely shut off from real estate that is fine. So when someone calls and says I want to see this house …stop saying “Great! When do you want to see it?” The answer is always on your day off or during your kid’s soccer game or te same Saturday that your best friend from High School is getting married! Try “Great! What days work best for you?” If they sa how about today and today is your day off then you can say that you have a prior committment and ask what other days work for them?” Will it work every time? NO it will work at least 80% of the time though.
Create the vacation effect…Schedule some time off it’s good for you!
Start Your Day with a Positive Thought for a Positive Start! 