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Investing in real estate remotely can be intimidating when you are juggling a full time job, family and the host of responsibilities life throws at you. In this episode we give you 4 tips to make sure you get everything done and stay on track.  --- Transcript   Michael: Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. My name is Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my co hosts,   Tom: Tom Schneider,   Emil: and Emil Shour   Pierre: and Pierre Carrillo   Michael: And today we're going to be talking about time management, something that's really important for most people, but especially important for those of us that are investing at a distance remotely, we're gonna be talking about some really practical things you can implement into your daily routine as an investor to help you manage some time. So let's get into it. Alright, guys, so we all know that time…   Emil: Hold on, hold on, hold on, we got a special guest on this episode, I feel like he deserves a very, very warm welcome and introduction to our listeners.   Michael: Pierre?   Pierre: Hey, what's up?   Michael: Can you give our listeners a little bit of background on who you are you pepper in some really great commentary in some of the episodes. But now you're going to be a full fledged host on this episode. Who are you?   Pierre: Yeah, I've been lurking in the corners since the beginning here, typing in when something's relevant. But yeah, I'm the producer on the show. And just starting out in the real estate game with my brother currently. So I don't speak much because I don't have much experience in this space. But I'm just learning from you guys. And excited to get in on this stuff.   Michael: Right on, we're stoked to have you.   Tom: Fantastic, and a great episode to jump in on time management being juggling, like 10 different jobs with the podcast and Academy and getting your real estate investing stuff going like, yeah, excited to have your input on this episode.   Pierre: Well, thanks. I need some of it too, because I have a weekly meeting with my brother. And we're always like, how do we use our time to really move this project forward? Because it's easy to just get stuck? Oh, let's analyze properties. Let's dive into this. But I think this is really going to be helpful. I'm going to definitely link my brother to this episode afterwards.   Tom: That's like the theme of the hosts is what is it self serving.   Pierre: Self serving?    Tom: Selfish like, bring on guests we want to learn from…   Pierre: Get your free consultation.   Tom: Exactly.   Michael: Love it. Awesome. So as we all know, life is very time consuming. And especially for those of us that have a nine to five or that are working day jobs, and then piling on kids and family responsibilities, and then adding on this layer of real estate investing. And for those who who are just learning that can feel like it's really time consuming. So we're going to walk through some strategies today that a lot of us have used personally, and so we can add some commentary into how it's been going. what's worked well, what hasn't worked well. But so we're gonna break this down in a couple different chunks. So, Emil, do you want to kick us off with the first strategy that folks can use to help manage some of their time?   Emil: Yeah, I'd love to. So I've actually tried a lot of the other things that we've outlined in our doc here that we're going to go over. But the thing that has really stood the test of time for me has been planning out my days in advance. And the biggest actual, like action item from that is putting things in my calendar. So I find that whatever I need to get done that day, if it makes its way onto my calendar, I have a much, much higher likelihood of getting it done, than if it's just kind of floating around on a to do list or floating around in my brain. So it's like some psychological thing where I've put on the calendar, I have this accountability to myself, it's sitting right in front of me that notification comes up.   So for me that's like, what I found to be one of the most helpful things and actually blocking things, setting aside a specific time to get them done. And getting them done. I think you can do there's a lot of stuff, I don't think it's just work, I think it can be, you know, in the context of real estate investing, if it's 30 minutes in your morning, right at 7:30am. Before you start work, whatever it is, to review properties or to read a real estate book, or a course you're in or whatever it is, whatever that action item for you is to keep progressing in your real estate investing, just blocking out that small chunk of time every day, I think is one of the best things I've found in terms of time management.   Michael: So Emil, I've got a question for you because it's something that I know you and I have talked about in the past and I've been trying to get better at how far in advance do you set the time block? Or do you schedule your day? Is it a day before? Is it day of the week out?   Emil: I used to be really good about like day before and I've slipped a little bit i think you know, as this is a bad excuse, but as more responsibility piles on I think it's like easier for those. It's just a habit I don't have anymore so I usually wake up I have my to do list. I'm like, What are the things I need to get done today? And then I'm usually just blocking them off throughout the day. But there's certain things and we're going to talk about it later than I've actually just become habits right like the first 30 minutes This is what I'm doing in the day. I don't even need a time block it. It's like those things that are happening every day become a habit versus a time block for me.   Tom: Oh, do you set like recurring schedule? Or do you know when you're setting those time blocks any advice in the way that you're setting up?   Emil: Yeah, so it's usually okay let's say I'm tackling things from my day, right? I need to whatever have some marketing campaign I need to get out the door that day. It's usually just like I'm blocking off Whatever chunk of time and I actually, I don't like to give myself gonna realistically take an hour, I'll just block off, usually try to block off 30 minutes, I've noticed that the longer the timeframe that that thing is blocked, you kind of just expand the time that it takes to get it done. So I like to keep things in like in small blocks, as well as one thing I found useful.   Michael: Is that a humble brag for that you're really efficient.   Emil No, a lot of times it goes over, but at least I'm like, it has a name. But like, whatever time you give yourself, you expand that fast. Yeah, whatever to just fill that time. There's plenty of times where I go past it. It's just I think more helpful to try to, I don't know, put less time than you think it'll take. And then if you need more, it's all good.   Michael: Yeah, that makes total sense. All right, we move on. We want to tackle anything else.   Emil: Yeah, that was it for me in terms of my biggest time management tool.   Michael: Awesome. So moving on here, Pierre, you had this really killer name for what you're going to be talking to us about? You wanna jump in here?   Pierre: Sure, yeah, I'm not going to be super innovative here. But it's just something that I find that works really well for me, and kind of every level of planning, say, like life goals or specific projects, but it's reverse chronology. It's where you identify what your end goal is going to look like, and then make a schedule working backwards from there. I feel like a lot of our strategies would overlap quite a bit. So I would use a meal strategy as well, to implement this reverse chronology. Say I have a project due by the end of the year, I know all the tasks that need to be done to make that project happen. So I'm going to plug in those time slots on my calendar to make sure that I have the time allocated properly to be able to achieve that goal by the end of the year.   Michael: Awesome.   Tom: Love it.   Michael: And how incremental? Are you breaking down those tasks that have to do is it a quarterly monthly daily, hourly kind of a thing?   Pierre: Dependent on the size of the project, but say, it's like a deliverable for the job here, I would break it into kind of manageable tasks like I like a meal, I get pretty distracted after about an hour of working on the same thing. So I would say kind of hour in less chunks. And with my job here, too, I got I wear a couple of different hats. So if I just spend too much time on one thing, I'll fall behind on another thing. So say time blocks of about an hour or less.   Michael: Cool.   Tom: It's great. I think so many times it can be intimidating if you're looking at a project. And it's it's almost as kind of like white paper, you know, I love that concept that you're talking about reverse chronology and sort of chunking it down into individual bits and having you know, clear deliverables on each stage of that. That's love it fantastic.   Emil: This one hits home for me, because I actually now despise yearly goals I think they're just too long of a timeframe. And it's, for me, it's like quarterly. And that's it, right. Like, I think it's good to have what's that big picture goal, whatever it is, but like, unless it's in a shorter time block, I just don't think your mind can like, get to the next action item. And just like, Alright, here's this short window of time, here's what I need to get done here, the outputs I'm going to do, versus like a year, I think is just so much time. And I don't know, I personally, the max thing I'll go for is like a quarter at a time.   Pierre: Totally. And there's this kind of psychological thing about getting small wins all the time. If you can just rack up a bunch of tiny wins, you can get momentum going. And that helps a lot.     Michael: Totally,   Pierre: That helps a lot with just feeling like not burnt out at the end.   Michael: So Pierre, I got to put you in the hot seat here for just a second because I think you're the perfect test case for talking about reverse chronology. So you and your brother working towards investing in real estate, you have this big lofty goal. What if somebody doesn't know what action items they need to take to get to that end goal? How can they use reverse chronology to kind of set up times and action items? If they're not sure what that path looks like?   Pierre: Sure.  That's exactly where we're at right now. So we don't know exactly what's our next step. You know, we hear Michael Zuber when we had him on he was talking about just 15 minutes a day get to know your market. We’re like, what does that mean, get to know your market? like do I go just browse the MLS and just see what's available on that market? Is that getting to them your market? Do I get the newspaper from a particular market? Like what does that mean? So I think there's a lot of gray area in between now and the finished product. But the finished product is pretty clear we want to buy a house, at least the end goal is a definitive goal. And so we're thinking, Okay, we want to house by June next year. So how long does it take to close a property? Maybe I don't know how long you guys like 30, 30 days, 30 days to do that. Okay. And then so we're giving ourselves about two and a half months, about 10 weeks back from the point that we want to close that property. So if we want to close on June 1 around that time, we're going to subtract 10 weeks off of that and so that by that point, we should have a market chosen a pm selected, maybe some opportunities or some options for a lender kind of planned ahead. So right now it's just we don't know what to do. Maybe we'll call Michael at Roofstock Academy and get a coaching session.   Michael: I think that's such a good point to bring up that. So often that path isn't crystal clear. We don't know all the steps, and especially for real estate investing, and especially for new real estate investors, what that looks like, and there's so many stumbling blocks, but I think like you and your brother are doing is taking one step at a time, all in the right direction, knowing that you're headed towards that end goal. It might be a little bit sideways, one day might be a little bit, you know, 45 degrees off the path, but still headed in that direction. And that's okay. Right? You don't have to know everything before getting started in order to get started, right.   Pierre: Yeah, so we find tasks to do, but we're looking forward to maybe sit down with you, Mike, and just get a more clear, step by step where we're going   Michael: Totally yeah. I'm really stoked for it. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. Alright, so moving on. Tom, can you talk to us about some strategies, tips and tricks that you've used in the past?   Tom: Yeah, so the theme that I'm going to talk about is make a system out of it. So there is a science around project management and task management. And there's a lot of tools out there. So using specific tools, some things that I like to do is I use Asana as sort of a day to day task management tool, and you can create templates. So if there's like types of tasks or projects, you can create a template and then clone it. So it's real estate related and analyzing, you know, a property or closing, you know, I have this checklists and things that I can use again, and again, there are no you don't have to everyone doesn't have to use the same tools, I think everybody is unique, and what makes them productive and getting things done. Like there's times where a pen and a paper and planning things out is really effective. For me, there's times where opening up a Google Sheet is really effective.   And sometimes in this exercise of going through and planning it, you may not necessarily use that like plan sheet again. But it feels like me, sometimes when I'm writing on paper or writing in Excel, like the process of writing it, it's like I'm writing on my brain in a way. And that kind of helps move things forward. Some other specific tools, I believe it's pomodoro is like a system where you work 20 minutes at a time, and then 20 minutes off, or something like that, and again to that theme that everybody's unique and the way that makes them most productive. So I think it's worth trying out a lot of different stuff, just like a meal mentioned, you know, some things have stuck, something hasn't. And it's worth the exercise of at least giving things a go.   On my desk at Roofstock, which I haven't been there a long time I miss it because we've been pandemic, I have this thing called the time timer, which was invented by like a kindergarten teacher who's either husband or wife was a consultant at McKinsey, this, you know, top consulting firm, and this consultant is like, wow, this is incredible as a way to manage time, it's like a reverse timer. So it's like, when you you spin this clock, it turns red. And as time passes, the red gets smaller and smaller. So it's like a reverse stopwatch if that makes sense. It has this red, big, huge visual thing. Anyways, I think they started using this time timer at like Stanford GSB. And like does other you know, kids consulting firms really cool tool time timer, they're like limiting yourself just to 20 minutes. It's this cool visual for meetings, it's super effective, too. I'm starting to digress a little bit. But the point is to look at some of these different tools out there and give them a shot and see what sticks for you. Not everything is for everyone. And honestly, it's totally reasonable that changes over time and what makes you most effective as systematizing, your process of prioritizing and working through projects and all of that good stuff, just don't be afraid to try stuff out on that front.   Emil: I use to use the Pomodoro Technique religiously for like a year or two. If your job involves, I think a lot of like project or task completion and you don't have a ton of meetings. Fantastic, fantastic way to just like, get through a lot of different tasks and just work with rhythms. You know, it's really hard to spend two hours straight focus on something. But the Pomodoro Technique is like an awesome way to just stay in focus, give yourself a break in focus, give yourself a break. So I was a big fan of that one for a while.   Tom: Yeah, the last kind of just two elements I wanted to mention is, is make it a ritual. So Michaels discussion is going to touch on a little bit more about aspects like this, but protect that time, the more that you do it, the more that turns into habit. And you might find that you stop using some system that works really well. And sometimes you stop for not a good reason. Like, perhaps for I don't know, whatever reason, like you just can't find your clock or whatever, and you don't use it. And then you realize a bunch of time passes. If you found it helpful, like go back and use it again. But you know, and don't be hard on yourself in the process. So make it a ritual, make it a habit systematize it,   Michael: I think that's so great. And you can also gamify it too, and kind of that systematize it challenge against yourself, see how you do and keep logs of stuff, too. I found to be really helpful.   Pierre: The program that my brother and I are using to organize our project is Trello   Emil: Trello is awesome.   Michael: Yeah, I like Trello, Trello is great.   Pierre: It's pretty cool. It's like a series of tabs that you can organize your tasks in. And so you can have like hierarchies of different things that you're working on and comments and links and more When you finish this particular task, you can just drag it over to the complete tab. So let's   Michael: Get that hit of dopamine. Yeah. Nice.   Tom: Other ones is a monday.com is a project management software. Right. Trello. So I like Asana. Yeah, a lot of good ones out there,   Michael: Right on. Were you going to say something?   Tom: I was gonna say, go ahead, Michael.   Michael: Awesome. So I gonna be talking about kind of the high level, how to put yourself in a position to be successful. So I think one of the biggest things here is, is first and foremost, determining when you're most productive, whether that's the morning and the night, midday after lunch before lunch. I think everybody has kind of a hot zone, so to speak of when they're most productive, and for each person figure that out, because it's not going to be the same for each of us. I'm curious to get your guys's hot zone. Tom, what are you most productive   Tom: Early bird worm, not midnight oil guy, early bird worm for sure. I'll even like something about like getting up extra like, weirdly early gives me a little bit of adrenaline like but getting out of bed sucks. But like, once you're up, it's like, oh, man, like, let's do this, you know? Yeah, let's say I have something do like in the beginning of the day, I'm so much better suited to just Alright, I'll set an alarm for 4am go to bed relatively early, and then get up and do it versus just trying to grind. I mean, there's some situations where you'd like have to stay up and grind but a definitely more of an early bird worm. That's where my creative juices are flowing best.   Michael: Okay, Pierre, what about yourself?   Pierre: I like the morning before people start bugging me. I think like around 9-10 people start sending me requests for things. And so I like getting to work early to get a lot of those things that I need to focus on done before people bug me.   Michael: Awesome. And Emil?   Emil: I have like three spreads throughout the day that I've kind of realized are like my natural most focus, so nine to noon, three to five, and then like nine till 11pm.   Tom: Multisport guy Nice.   Emil: Yeah, I don't know. It's like, all the other times I kind of just try to block with like meeting or admin stuff, but for some reason, like those three points in time, or when I feel the most creative or like focus, so try to work, try to put things around those hours that require like, different focus or creativity.   Tom: How about yourself, Michael?   Michael: I'm kind of like Emil. So like 4am to 7am is really good. And then like 7pm to 10pm I find I can get a ton of stuff done. So kind of like me. I was mentioning and Pierre was mentioning those…   Emil: You wake up at 4am?   Michael: Occasionally, yeah, sometimes naturally   Tom: Catch the surf man. That's when it's empty.   Michael: It's when the tubes are curling man.   Emil: Okay, surfing doesn't count, right? Sometimes I'm up at 5am to go surfing.   Pierre: Yeah, I left out all of my other ambitions.   Michael: I mean, I'll occasionally wake up at four and just crush you know, just do some deep work as they call it and just get a ton of stuff done because of everything you guys just mentioned. No one's disturbing you doing some kind of real estate stuff in Portugal. So that's also a good time to be in touch with people out there as well as on the east coast. Some contractors out there so sometimes I have to do sometimes it's just for fun. But it's kind of sick thoughts for fun waking up AT 4 am.   Tom: I think there's like some adrenaline bit to it. I mean, I'm not like regularly But no, no, but I ride with you, man. I'm right there with I mean, getting getting out. getting out of bed sucks. But I think once you're like in flow, yes. In flow. Yeah. It's kind of a related question. Is there any type of tasks that just makes you cringe like you just hate doing it? Like so much?   Michael: Recording podcasts?   Tom: Oh, yeah, me too.   Pierre: I have to say editing podcasts?   Michael: The worst.   Tom: Yeah, go first. I hate returning things. Like if you order something that's broken, and it's like, you need to return it. I like literally can't I probably have $200 worth of returns that I just couldn't be like, just like makes me mad. It says it's like boxes of things that either have like something broken when it arrived. And so as soon as I situation comes up, I might get some dread on me. So not a good returner of packages. It's my anti superhero power.   Emil: Tom, what are your greatest weaknesses? I just can't return things.  I seize up.   Pierre: I feel you Tom.   Michael: I don't know. Do you guys have anything that makes you… I’m just kind of thinking   Tom: It’s hard being perfect, isn't it Michael?   Michael: Yeah. It's   Emil: emails, emails that have like, mountains and paragraphs of text. It's like, Nope, I do not want to write a sonnet back to you like,   Tom: Yeah,   Emil: Can we just have a five minute conversation? I don't want to write a book right now. That's I just kind of… like   Pierre: Certain admin tasks. Oh, yeah. Just a little dry.   Michael: Yeah, though. My last good Mother's Day my wife will attest to this but like filing like filing stuff like paperwo rk stuff because we can just get so much so much of this stuff is still snail mail that we get an old civil paperwork. So converting that to digital or just file like filing stuff. away. I've got papers on the on the windows. So right now and I Paris like really Michael? Really? We have fun like I got you filing cabinet specifically for this like, Ah, no, but it can't just live there.   Tom: Yeah, it looks happy there.   Michael: Right? It's getting some sunlight in the growing.   Tom: Alright, let's get back to this.   Michael: Alright, back on the rails here. Yeah. So another thing that I think can be really helpful that I've used in the past is removing distractions. And so so I used to work at home in my last job, it was half in the field half from home. And I would always have buddies asked me like, dude, like, how did you just not watch TV all day? Like, but just turn it off? I don't understand the question. So hiding things from yourself if you need to, whether that's the remote control, or passwords to stuff or just like things that distract you golf clubs, for you, Tom, you know, out of sight, out of mind kind of a thing. And then also identify, what's that   Tom: Phones, man phones.   Michael: Yeah, turning your phone off or on Do Not Disturb or just putting it away, can be super helpful. Because I think I'm guilty of it. If I see it buzz or light up, I'm tempted to look at it. And that's a huge distraction. So essentially, I was listening to this podcast, the BiggerPockets podcast the other day that came out. And they were talking about identifying what is and is not a distraction. And so people always saying like, oh, man, I like went on social media for an hour. And it was so distracting. And now that hour is gone. And that added up. But they were talking about in the episode as well. What were you planning to do in that time? Let me see your calendar. And so if you didn't have something planned for that hour, anyhow, is it technically a distraction. And the argument they were saying is no, because it didn't stop you from doing anything, it didn't prevent you from doing something. So look to identify what it is you're trying to accomplish. And then try to identify the distractions. And I think using time blocking can be a really good way to do that. Because then you'll actually have set times, but also be gentle with yourself. If you didn't have something planned, who cares? like whatever, go do it.   If it makes you happy, do it. And I think kind of giving in to those urges can help you not feel so distracted. I mean, if social media is your vice, you might constantly be thinking about it while you're trying to do other stuff while you're trying to focus on something else. And so if you need to go check social media for 1520 minutes, set time aside in your day to go do that, enjoy it and then go back to what you're doing. You can stop thinking about social media, you know, or whatever that vice is   Emil: Social media is the devil.   Michael: Social media is the devil   Tom: Was that Netflix documentary?   Michael: Yeah.   Emil: The social dilemma associate. There I was very, very interesting documentary   Tom: PhDs trying to mess.   Emil: That is really what's going   Michael: They were talking about on this podcast episode how the host was totally in disagreement with it. He said, because the movie missed an opportunity to tell us what we can do. And it's it's like, oh, it's your there's nothing you can do your sucker to social media. It's like, Yeah, but also not really like you can you can turn it off, there are tons of things you can do, you can time block it so you can go get that fix, and go spend your time doing it. And then you don't feel bad for having done it. I got the itch man,   Tom: I got a fun tip for with related to social media, you can turn the color off of your phone. So it goes black and white. They call it moto or is their turn   Pierre Monochromatic.   Tom: Monochromatic. So it makes some of that, you know, sizzle in red Heller. Yeah, you don't have to look at it. And it makes it black and white. And I have my phone like that, too. If I feel I'm getting a little too stuck into it. I tried to see if a black and white.   Michael: Yeah, nice. I think it's probably easier on your eyes to especially like in dark rooms. All those vivid colors can be really harsh.   Tom: It's like social media methadone. Good.   Michael: That's exactly what it is. And then so kind of moving on here talking about Tavella, there's no Popeye needs his spinach. So figuring out what your spinach is, you know what juices you up to help you get focused to help you do work. And so for me, a big drink of water in the morning is super helpful. I try not to drink coffee, it just makes me really jittery. But occasionally if I really need a big boost, I'll have a little bit of coffee, and then I'll feel it all day. So figure out what helps you get going or kind of get into that proper headspace. And then do that use that regularly. And it's interesting. Emil, you were talking about, you know, not being able to sit for a couple hours and do stuff and how so that pomodoro style was really helpful, you know, kind of 20 minutes on 20 minutes off. I'm so the exact opposite. I can sit for three, four or five hours and just like work and do and accomplish. And again, this is totally not a humble brag and says it needs to be my own horn. But.   Emil: Uh huh.   Michael: I think figuring out for each individual person what works best. what works best for you is super great.   Tom: Toot toot.   Michael: And so if you are someone that can sit for hours and do work, great, but don't mistake being at the computer and doing stuff with accomplishing stuff because you can be busy and not accomplish anything. So look to make sure that you're actually getting some traction. And that's something that a theme in the episode they talked about is that bigger pockets episode is traction versus distraction, so I won't spoil it for everybody. Any thoughts there before we move on team?   Tom: Love the busy versus productive, be productive Don't be busy. And also the Popeye needs a spinach. I know for myself I sometimes a little bit of a snacker. So trying to get something reasonably healthy but if I know that I would ever work better with Cheez Its and it's really important for me to work really well. Maybe just have a little a couple of visits or I'm feeling special. I can add some walnuts or goji berries. I don't know. I'm just throwing some buzzwords out there. Anyways, so if you're a snacker like just yeah, know what your know what makes you tick.   Michael: Have you ever had the Tabasco Cheezits?   Tom: No, it sounds great.   Michael; Oh, they're so good. They're so good. Alright, so moving on here. Just some other rules that I try to abide by. I'm curious what your guys's thoughts do not multitask. I'm going to come out and just say it's a fallacy. I think it's a really good way to do a bunch of stuff poorly. Not a fan of multitasking. If you can do it great. I'm not a believer in it. your guys's thoughts on multitasking,   Emil: I'm with you, my wife. And I always have this argument. My wife's a nurse. And she's like, if I couldn't multitask, I could never do my job. And I say, you know, power to you. I am like one thing at a time, or else I just do them all terribly. So I think some people can do it. I just, I don't know, I don't know how doesn't, does not compute for me.   Tom: You can see you're doing it. But what's probably happening is you're doing one thing, and then quickly switching it   Emil: Switching. It's not multi, yes, it's switching. But I'm terrible at that even right, I need like singular focus. Personally.   Tom: same   Michael: Pierre, same for you? Pierre: I think you guys are right, and that it's switching a bunch of tasks, but it's keeping kind of a big picture of a lot of things you have going on, so you can switch efficiently between them. So I think that's kind of my version of multitasking, because I do like my position here is not one thing. So I do have to keep a bunch of tasks in my mind at the same time with my goal where I want to get you at the end of the day. But I think you guys are right in when the rubber meets the road. And I'm acting, I am only acting on one thing at a time.   Michael: So it's like on an iPhone when you up, swipe and hold it to look at all the applications you have running and just grab the next one?   Pierre iPhone what? We had this conversation Mike.   Michael: I know, I know. You’re the green bubble when I text. So there's something else that I will be the first to admit I'm terrible at and that can be really helpful for time management is learning to say no, I There's something I've been trying to work on over the last couple of years, saying no can be one of the most empowering things you can do. And it can also be one of the most beneficial things you can do in your time management realm. And so there's a polite way to say no, and I think doing so can be really helpful and really open up your schedule. Because if you become the yes person that can often become cyclical and habitual. And people know Oh, great. I can go to Emil because he said yes, last time. So he's gonna say yes again. And you can be pretty quickly salad bagged with a lot of other people's stuff that isn't necessary for you to perform whatever it is, you need to.   Emil: I am a huge, huge fan of saying no, I feel like I used to suck at this and would say yes to everything. I think there's a time in your life where it's good to say Yes, a lot. I think if you're early in your career Early in whatever you're doing, I think saying yes, and being like, super open and liberal with your time makes a lot of sense. I don't think saying no, when you're early makes sense. I think you'll you'll be at a deficit. But as you know, some things start to fall in place or whatever and you're growing. If you don't learn how to say no, you're just gonna be doing a lot of stuff that's unnecessary. And I think with time you start to learn that a lot of things aren't going to move the needle, it's just like the nature of the game there's, you know, the 80-20 rule, where 20% of what you do is going to make 80% of the results and so I think with time you just get better at that and it helps flex your no muscle to be like okay, is this really going to make a difference?   Michael: So question for you Emil for the new people who are maybe just starting out their career How do they balance learning to say no with setting boundaries and line setting expectations because I could very easily see you're the yes person at the beginning. Everyone's like cool Emil is easy. And then all of a sudden five years down the road someone else used to be like no, like whoa, meals kind of a jerk all of a sudden.   Emil: I don't think people perceive it that way. I think if you're polite about it and just say man I have these things going on I just I don't have the capacity for this right now. Thank you for keeping me in mind or whatever. I think there's there's a nice way to do it and not right like if people know you're not just like saying no so you can kick your feet up and do nothing. right it's I think people will respect it if you're polite about and you know, give a reason people always appreciate a reason even though you're not obligated to give one.   Pierre: That's right saying no to something and saying yes to something else. So if you struggle saying no, just tell someone that you've said yes to something else already.   Michael: Oh, Mic drop here. Exit stage left, episode over love that. Yeah,   Tom: I’ll add a couple of more points. So I love the point that Emil said about you know, being a little bit younger maybe was Michael said but being younger in your career. Like there's something to be said for grinding super hard. My wife, one of her earlier job, she was at PwC for a couple of years. And she had a manager who would joke that Yeah, you know, if you're working 100 hours a week, it's like you're getting two years of experience. And just one year, I thought that was like a funny way to think about it kind of disgusting. But you know, but it's, it's, I think there's a time and a place in your career for gain that value.   The other thing, I think in that saying no, is really important. I would always put it into context into who is asking you to do someone? Is it someone who's kind of like constantly just trying to delegate all their work to somebody else? Who or is it someone who like, wow, this is someone I should, like, impress and be awesome with. So I think it's all contextual. And also, the type of work is this type of work that I'm going to be building some muscles that I can use later on in my career is this type of work that's going to make an impact to revenue or expenses and directly touch that kind of stuff. So it's all contextual. And I think what happens over time, as you get better to say, No, you get better at reading in between the lines of like, is this something that's valuable for the company? Is this valuable for me? Or is this just someone offloading some some random busy work? So I think that's all important to understand. And also, you'll just get better over time. And being able to read between the lines as stuff comes comes across.   Michael: Yep, I think that's super great. points, Tom. And I think also segues nicely into the last thing I want to talk about, which is learning to delegate. And I think so many of us, especially in the real estate space, again, I am so guilty of this, but trying to do everything yourself, because no one can do it as good as you can. So if we're investing remotely, a lot of us will be relying on property managers. So being okay, letting go a little bit and saying, hey, I need you to do this. For me making phone calls, you know, delegating tasks, your time is better spent elsewhere. And I think a lot of people have a really hard time paying for services, or paying to have someone do something. But at the end of the day, if I can pay someone 20 bucks an hour to do something for me, and I can go make $100 an hour or $1,000 an hour doing something else, because that's what I'm better suited for. That's a really great use of my time and a really great use of my money. So a lot of people, again, have a really hard time doing that. But look at the actual cost, versus what your ability to earn is for that time.   Emil: Very good point. It's why I don't mow my own lawn.   Tom: Yeah, all the great resources out there for help extra stuff. So mowing,   Emil: You know, family time, you know, it's just like, you start to, I don't know,   Tom: yeah, there's a lot of good websites on helping to delegate or bringing in people to help out. So like Upwork is a good one, I had a great use case where I was at a friend's wedding, I was the best man, I had to write a best man speech. And I put together like, kind of like spilled my guts on a page, and then brought in a professional speech writer who actually wrote for cash flows that show drunk history. He was like, he was like a producer for that show. So he's like, super funny, like stand up comedian. And I best use the mice, I paid 100 bucks, and he basically took rearranged my like, gut spilling into a really well put together speech. And it like brought down the house, you know, using and what I want you guys to take away from that story is just test it, like create an account on either Upwork or one of these other platforms. Fiverr is another one, and you know, have some small tests, and then do it like, just bring someone in, it's, the more times you do it, like the better you're gonna get at it. And then you're going to bring down the house at a wedding. So it's worth doing.   Emil: That's so smart. I never even thought about that. That's a really smart idea.   Michael: The last tip I'm going to share on this is I got it from somewhere else, I can't take credit for it. But right for like two weeks just write down everything that you do during your day, task wise. And then look to see at the end of that two weeks, what could you pay someone to do? Did you hire a virtual assistant? Could you pay a TaskRabbit? Or someone on Upwork? Could you pay someone else to do some of these tasks, and essentially like to buy back some of your time. And I just thought that was really interesting exercise because I think so many of us do things that without even thinking about without even realizing what we're doing. And when we really stop and lay it all out, it can be pretty eye opening to see how we're spending our time.   Pierre: It's a good accountability mechanism as well. Let's see how much you know, write down your bad stuff, too.   Tom: So love that audit, do the audit exercise of your two weeks. All right, I'm gonna add in some final thoughts that I have here. One of them is Be sure to charge your battery like these systems that you run or these you know, it's all a little bit of extra work. And it's really important to know how full your balloon is because the worst thing you can do is continue to take on more stuff and you just end up doing like doing badly poorly. So charging your battery take time off. Like if you work at a job that has time off like know how much bandwidth you have no one you're you're gonna blow and just be open honest and constructive with everybody about when you need to charge that battery.   The other one is continued to evolve. It's not a one size fits all. And it's also not a one size all the time. I don't think I said that right but often too. Your systems and the way that you do things are going to evolve over time. So be okay with that. And what works for you now may not work for yourself in six months, but just continue to try new things out have that spirit of keeping the pistons going. And then lastly is to not be too hard on yourself, if you're, you know, not being super productive, or you're getting whatever lost in social media or you're just you're not where you want to be. There's this parable about getting hit by two arrows. So like, one of them is the first mistake. And the second one is just kind of shaming yourself for feeling really bad for not doing great. So get hit with the one arrow be okay with it, and then get back on the horse. So that's my Don't be too hard on yourself and pistons going. Yep, that's those are my final thoughts.   Michael: Oh, love it, love it. I think that's just to echo what you said, Tom, being gentle with yourself, I for sure have beat myself up really good for decisions I've made, especially when it comes to real estate investing. And you know, either biting off more than you can chew or just making a poor decision rushing into making a decision. And so I think it's so important to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and realize that, okay, the decision has been made, it's time to move forward, there's not you can't change that unless you can well then go back and change it but just continually moving forward. And try not to dwell on the past, which is so much easier said than done. And I know that but I just a reminder to everybody listening it be gentle with yourself, this is a you will make mistakes, you will learn the hard way, I will promise you that. So just know that and kind of move forward from it. Emil and Pierre you want to take us home?   Emil: My final thought, try to keep this stuff simple. Don't later on 12 of these things that we just mentioned, Pomodoro Technique, adding things to your calendar, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're just like, I know people who do that. And they're often the least productive people I know. Because all they're doing is juggling tools and techniques and strategies and stuff, I would say try to just hone in on a couple things and just get good at those.   Pierre Yeah, I'll echo that you can read a ton of books and just learn a ton of different methods for keeping track of time but then that's time being lost to if you haven't put any of it into action. So just choose one thing. Start with that. Get Started.   Michael: Do you have any resources books that you'd recommend Pierre?   Pierre No, don't read any books. Just do what we just said.   Michael: Audio books only on your way to doing other stuff.   Emil: I have one because I think the biggest thing here is making these things habits. It's called Atomic Habits by James Slear that was that was one of the best books I've read on forming habits.   Michael: Awesome. Yeah, Tom give any book resource recommendations?   Tom: Classic one, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Stephen Covey wrote it, it's a classic classic, it's talks about sharpening the saw, a lot of stuff we're talking about, but I love audiobooks when I'm like doing dishes and just like kind of thing and but not really. So that's in my regular queue of learning and doing better. So that's my that type of productivity hour is cleaning or dishes or whatever. Poppin an audiobook   Michael: So is it almost like you're multitasking?   Tom: Shut up Michael. Well, no. Those are that's a good thing to multitask with.   Michael: You can walk and chew gum. Absolutely.   Tom: Yeah. with you. I take back my shut up Michael.   Michael: A book that I would recommend that people check out if you're interested in implementing some more of this stuff. We talked about his Miracle Mornings by Hal Elrod it's a really great book. I implemented a bunch of stuff and kind of fell off the wagon a little bit, especially with regard to waking up early, but I think there's a lot of really good useful tips tricks in there as well. Alrighty, well guys, this was a lot of fun. And hopeful that people got a lot of useful stuff out of this and know that everybody's human Everybody makes mistakes. So figure out what works best for you and then truly go look to implement it and not just for a day or a week or a month you know, really give it a college try. Give it your best. And it doesn't work move on because not everything will work for you.   Emil: College try I didn't I don't know.   Michael: Isn't that isn't that isn't the thing   Tom: Its like a 20 saying like, like a 30 like “the good old…”   Michael: Yeah. prohibition just around the corner give it a college try.   Emil: A sincere effort or attempts at performing a difficult or seemingly impossible task.   Michael: All right.   Emil: I stand corrected. Continue, Michael.   Michael: Awesome. For once. For what yeah, that's my one for the month guys.   Emil: Check it off.   Michael: That was our episode. Thank you everybody so much for hanging in there with us. Really appreciate it. If you'd like this episode, please feel free to give us a rating or review and subscribe wherever you listen your podcasts and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. Happy investing,   Tom: Happy investing.   Emil: Happy Investing,   Pierre Happy time management.