I stopped posting after day three! Not because of poor organizational skills, but improved! I was able to quickly make some hard choices on what was important and what was not!
We had to make some sudden trips out of town to spend some quality time with my wifes grandfather. Yes, he did pass away at the ripe old age of 97. At the funeral, it was mentioned that he was a boilermaker by trade. At the age of 75, he convinced a company that was hiring that he was 50 years old, and worked there for 25 years. Before he went in to the hospital, he was still working the farm. He had feed and milked the animals, and just roto-tilled a garden. All I can say is “WOW!”
Anyway, I digress… The organization thing did what it was suppose to do over the last few weeks. As “situations” have come up (which they have), I was able to reassess priorities (like writing my blog post) and have come out of it pretty much unscathed. It is also helping me to remember to hang the car keys up in the right place (my wife has been astounded by that a couple of times!).
Enough about that!
Other thoughts!
I received an email this morning that read:
I was wondering if you can spare a few minutes
to help me out with something.
We’re in the middle of surveying thousands of agents
about what’s working for them online…
…and the results so far have been shocking
I sent a reply back: “What is working for me is I no longer actively sell real estate! I teach other agents how to use social media for marketing, and moderate a group of REO agents. It is working out very well! Have a goodin!”
Dad Stuff.
I was once told by one of my favorite social mediaites Lara Kretler I should become a “daddy blogger.” So here is my go with something I learned….
After 3 years of fighting with my son to go swimming and ”throwing” him in the pool (relax folks, I was there the entire time with him, he can tread!) he finally to to it like a fish. After putting him in “time out” for an hour, hearing him come up with every excuse there is NOT to go, my will won and we went to the pool. I told him he can go swimming, not complain, and get in, OR he can sit in that chair for the rest of the weekend and watch a door AFTER I throw him in (I know, I am so mean)!
It was time to go, Jr was deciding his fate. Was he going to get “thrown in” or walk in from the shallow end under his own accord. He grabs his towel, his goggles, and his kick board, walks out side, hands me the kick board, mounts his bike, and off to the pool we go. He was grousing the whole time and trying to make a deals on the way over. I held my ground and told him he was going to swim today.
We get there and thats when the saving grace came in… He had FRIENDS at the pool! Slowly, he laid his stuff down and prepared to get in. Me on the other hand threw everything down and jumped as quickly as possible. Think of the movie “Sandlot” where the Hamilton Porter character jumps in yelling “CANNONBAAAALLLL!” yep, that was me.
So back to the story, Jr walks down to the shallow end with his friends screaming “Jump in, hurry up!” Not wanting to seem a “fraidy cat” Jr quickly walked in, noticed his head was about 6 inches above the water, and started having fun with his friends. Three hours later when I told him its time to leave, yeah… you guessed it… he argued about leaving.
So for the last 2 days since he started swimming, he has eagerly asked to go to the pool. He is so in to swimming now, that after asking if he could go do his most favorite thing in the world (spend the night with grandma and grandpa), he started scheming on how he go get some swimming in while with them.
So what is the lesson I learned here? It helps when some of your child’s ”best friends” are around doing something your kid does not want to do.
Something I noticed:
I have the same body I’ve always had… adjusted for inflation, of course!
Last but not least. Why Memorial Day is not about cookouts, hotdogs, and the start of summer for my family.
In Honor of Marine PFC Christian D. Gurtner, 19 years old.
Died April 2, 2003.
First Ohio Causality in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Christian D. Gurtner
Christian proudly served his country!
He left behind a baby daughter, a mother, father, grandmother, sister’s, countless aunt’s, uncle’s, cousin’s & friend’s.
05 May, 2010 | Author: Rocky VanBrimmer | No Comments »
Here we are on day 3. couple of the projects are caught up, I have some meetings to move around, and was able to play “Chump Dump,” which made my day.
I still have to catch up on my CRM, it really is not doing any good if I am not using it, which I need to.
People keep telling me that Rome was not built in a day, 36 years of bad habits takes work to overcome. Not that is an excuse.
Story time with Rocky: In a time far far away, my employer once paid for me to attend Franklin Covey (Pre smartphones). I embraced it, I took my schedule book EVERYWHERE, was using it, stayed organized… For 3 months every activity, expense, conversations, and everything else I needed to record was written down, with pen and paper.
One day, I walked away from my desk to attend some personal business (the kind where you do not need your scheduler). When I returned, my scheduler was GONZO, disappeared, “walked off.” It was awful!
For 3 days, I searched high and low, asked my co-workers if they “seen it,” offered a reward, asked for it to be returned with no questions asked. Finally on day 4, it appeared on my desk as I walked in to work. No note, no sign of where it was, nothing.
Ahhh relief I thought, however the damage had been done. By that morning, I had stopped writing things down. The horror.
So in essence, I was ONCE organized in life, doing pretty good, and chugging along everything in one place. No longer so. Now as a small business person, who is responsible for the “sales” of my company, it is more important then ever to know what is in and coming out of my pipeline.
Am I coming along? I think so. Can I do better? YES!
Day 1 was very interesting for lack of a better term. The plan WAS to eat breakfast with Jr, have some “Amoeba Productivity Time,” work on 2 projects, run to Skyline Chili for lunch, take a 1 o’clock nap, go to Scouts, spend time with Amanda, and plan my day for today, be in bed by 10pm.
However here is what REALLY happened! Started the day off with no phone single, spent 1 1/2 on the phone with Sprint, could not make calls, wipe my phone clean, did not finish my projects, made an unexpected 2 hour trip and back to VanWert Hospital with my wife, in bed by 1am.
First things first, my wife’s grandfather is 97 years old and in the hospital. He has congestive heart failure however he was up talking, laughing, and had his wits about him complaining about having to sell his goats (He states the secret to long life is a fresh “squeezed” glass of goats milk a day). The man is feisty and stubborn, however the age of 97 you are allowed to be. My wife’s family appreciates everyones prayers and well wishes!
On to other things… I do not see yesterday as a COMPLETE failure in my attempt to orgainze, there was “A” success… When we received the news of my wifes grandfather, I was able to reschedule my son’s dentist appointment and postpone a scheduled meeting for today. Now I am working to RE-schedule that meeting and get completed my list from yesterday.
The bad news, I am 1 day behind on 3 projects with one of those projects actually being 4 days. That project, updating Zoho CRM with my sales activities (Thank you Teddy Anderson for getting me turned on to this!)
I am still very optimistic for day two. My day could change at any moment, and I could be headed back to VanWert, Ohio, land my MULTI-Million dollar account, OR complete all my task today and be satisfied knowing I fulfilled my mission!
Either way, the word for the day is “SENSE OF URGENCY!”
I am and WILL change this around!
With that said, I am OUTTIE, I have work to do!!!!!
Yes, I must get “ORGANIZED!” So today is day 1. Over the weekend I spent most of my time putting in task and events for my calendar. My day is to start at 5:30 am, and by 6 I am to have coffee made, breakfast ate, and to be sitting at the computer for what I will call “Amoeba Productivity Time.” However that was quickly ruined at the time of writing this sentence since my wife decided to wake my son up at 6:18 am. This will be interesting!
Anyway, “Amoeba Productivity Time” is my time to be scatter brained and work on WHATEVER I feel like doing. This will be fun.
Hopefully, I will be able to post something about how this experiment worked. Till then, 20 more days to go before this stuff becomes “habit” according to Franklin Covey.”
It’s kinda quiet late at night,
very dark room, just dim computer light.
Listen to the creeks and cracks comin from the walls,
weird noises from the heater, I need to make a service call.
There is my puppy laying out on the floor,
My goodness someone is knocking very loud on my neigbors door.
I am a lil hungry, my belly has a ting of a gurgle
mmmmm left over taco’s, heating them would be a big hurdle.
Yet I find it calming, the quiet late night,
That is fine by me, it is extreamly allright!
I LOVE YOU! Really, I do! You have a cool amazing service that has allowed me to expand my business, make new friends, and get in touch with people I have not spoken too in YEARS! Your groups feature, it is FANTASTIC! I have been using it since November 2007 with The Central Ohio Network.
I do have one small favor to ask though. Can we get rid of the function that will not allow you to make another post for 7 days on the dot to the hour, minute, and second? It is a bit annoying.
Last week, Tuesday Jan, 12 2010 @5pm EST, I sent out an announcement to all the members of CO Net regarding weekly updates. I had full knowledge that I would not be able to do this again for about a week. I even understand the policy behind only being allowed to post once every 7 days. You do not want it to be used for spam… However, today is day 7!
I was quite surprised after I tried to send out my weekly communique when I received the following message:
A new announcement may be sent in 6 hours.
Announcements are limited to one every seven days. This group’s last announcement, COnected! The Central Ohio Network Weekly Update Jan, 12 2010 by Rocky VanBrimmer was sent on 1/12/2010.
Come on LinkedInReally? I have to wait 6 more hours to send an announcement? What if I am not available at that time, and send it out at 9 pm? That means next week I have to wait till 9:01 pm to send another announcement out. After awhile, I could see where I start posting on Wed, then Thursday, Friday… etc if I miss my “window.” Eventually I will have to skip a week to get back to a decent time to send this out on Tuesday’s.
My recommendation, have the default set to 12:01 am on the 7′th day. It still allows one whole week to pass by, and allows the group owner to send out announcements at a time convenient to them.
So how bout it LI, can we get this change hot tracked this week? I hope so… That way I can spend my evening with my family rather than waiting for 6 hours to pass after I have written out my announcement.
Take Amanda & Dominic out to dinner (Their choice).
Work on my listening skills.
Call my mom up and just listen to her.
Call 5 friends I have not spoken to in over a year.
Write a letter letting someone know how much I appreciate them.
Smile more at strangers as they pass by and wish them a “Jolly Good Day!”
Send out more “Rocks On Awards”
I think thats it, any suggestions for other stats I should post? Or, do you have any good goals you would like to share for next week? I can ALWAYS use the help!
