Adaero Property

Quite often it is not new information that we need but rather to be reminded of what we might already know. One of Darren Hardy’s daily messages this week reminded me that wisdom is earned through awareness. I shared this concept in week 40 last year when I first learned about it.

 

To elaborate a little, what this means is that in order to ‘grow through life’ rather than just go through life, we have to pay for wisdom with our attention. We must force ourselves to assess our observations and insights from each day and each week. Without doing that we go through life missing out on the subtle opportunities to learn and grow.

 

For a number of years now I’ve been capturing 3 lessons learned from each weekday. 99% of these new learns that I capture each day are typically words of wisdom from books, mentors, and other external resources. However, on hearing Darren’s message again this week it reminded me to consciously add more self observations from the day. For example things I may have learned in the act of trying things, doing and making mistakes. When we consciously document these insights it embeds the lesson in the brain.

 

When reflecting on our days like this it can be like finding little nuggets of gold as it relates to the mini lessons that could help continuously improve your property business.

 

The last couple of weeks, and in particular last weekend, have probably been our busiest ever in the SA business thanks to the Edinburgh marathon, a bank holiday and an international golf tournament (all on top of our usual contractor stays). With all our properties filled to capacity and with multiple same day changeovers it was a great opportunity to stress test operations. As can be expected in the hospitality industry, multiple challenges did show up and were effectively dealt with.

 

We are emerging with new learns at different points throughout our operational process that will help us refine things things from payments, to linen logistics, emergency maintenance provisions (and multiple trade people) to waste collection management and beyond. The minutiae that can only be picked up over the course of time and in the act of doing but with the right reflection can teach us so much.

 

While we are continuing to learn in our SA business, Chris and I have also been reflecting and learning from the process of putting ourselves out there and delivering a webinar on the 3 step strategy we are using to DE-RISK PROPERTY DEALS AND BUY WITH CONFIDENCE – FOR MULTIPLE EXITS AND HIGHEST RETURNS.  If you are looking to become the kind of property investor who can enjoy the holy grail of monthly net profit cash flow PLUS periodic lump sum cash injections​​…then we’d love for you to join us on our next webinar. Email me directly if you’d like like to find out when the next live webinar is going out – tsen@adaeroproperty.com

 

To close this weeks post I wanted to share a topic related side note – when speaking to my eldest son recently about seeing mistakes as feedback to learn and improve from, he shared with me a brilliant acronym for the word FAIL that they learned at school… it goes as follows:

 

First

Attempt

In

Learning

I really liked that and was delighted to hear they are learning about growth mindset at school. Armed with this wisdom, my son made me a very proud Dad this afternoon by standing up and wakeboarding on his first outing. He’s not yet 10, and after 2 failed attempts (face plants) he nailed it and rode out a full minute.

Have a great week all and be sure to do some positive FAIL -ing.

I’ve recently learned a new definition of ‘productive’ and I’d like to challenge your existing perspective with it.

For decades (and no doubt generations) we humans have scoured productivity books and resources looking in search of the silver silver bullet to magically help us get more of what we want done. I’m not sure how how many books have actually been written on the subject but a quick search for productivity books on amazon brought up over 30,000.

It was brought to my attention recently by one of my mentors in the US that we can typically sort productivity into 3 main categories, as follows:

#1 – Work harder – so in other words increasing the per minute output. For example this might be answering more emails, doing more billable hours, saying yes to more projects etc

#2 – Work smarter -this would include time saving productivity hacks. Think the 4 hour work week, batching tasks, hiring consultants, finding short cuts, implementing systems and best practices.

#3 – Be braver – maybe you are surprised to be reading this 3rd category, but have a think about what kind of action it includes – asking. Pitching. Partnering. Making art and taking risks. Being the first to do something. Making calculated bets.

The definition of productivity should be tilting towards no.3 because as my mentor put it, “Courage is the entrepreneurial force multiplier”. In being more productive we must optimise for courage. In many cases being courageous doesn’t take long.

Ask yourself, what is the most courageous action you can take this week?

For Chris and I it is putting ourselves out there on a webinar this Monday night to share our property strategy with those who are interested to join us. To learn more about our strategy for DE-RISKING PROPERTY DEALS AND BUYING WITH CONFIDENCE – FOR MULTIPLE EXITS,  HIGHEST RETURNS AND PEACE OF MIND, you can register for the webinar here.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

 

 

If you have been following all this series of posts, well done for sticking with us, and thank you for the interest and support. Chris and I really hope that the last 5 posts have helped bring some clarity and renewed confidence to your property investing.

Whether you are figuring out how to get started buying, already have some experience but are trying to overcome a stuck point, or are an existing SA operator looking to add periodic lump sums to your monthly cashflow then the approach we’ve been sharing over the last few weeks has something to help you.

Here’s a quick recap to summarise what we’ve covered the last 5 weeks, followed by a mini action plan at the end.

Post 1  – The context – how we moved past being stuck not buying for 2 years by effectively addressing 3 key areas of the process

Post 2 – In this post we covered off the main considerations we focus on in the buying phase, looking at:

• Area & sourcing
• Analysis & viewings
• Financing and buying entity
• Key people in the power team

In Post 3 – we looked into the refurb phase of a project and shared a walkround video of the current property project that we are transforming for the end use of serviced accommodation. Chris pointed out key aspects of the refurb that will result in ease of maintenance, longevity, energy performance, a decent uplift in value, marketing and usability. We also pointed out key components to organise the work flow in refurb phase:

• The budget plan
• The description of works
• The project plan
• The team

In Post 4 – we started to look at the ‘monetising’ phase with Cash Exit 1. In other words, once the transformation of the refurb is complete what can we do to quickly start making some money from the investment.

In Post 5 – we took a deeper look at what’s involved in our preferred Cash Exit 1 – running serviced accommodation. From here we transitioned into Cash Exit 2 and beyond, which essentially opens up multiple options for the investor depending on what’s important to them at the time. The key thing being, to have those options, whether by holding for cashflow or selling for lumpy profit.

 

Like Jim Rohn said, ‘what’s easy to do is also easy not to do’. But if you’re interested in taking a little action, here are some simple actions you can take right now to help you make incremental progress:

#1 Start with gaining some clarity. If you have been keen to invest in property for some time and been wondering which strategy to use in your area, ask yourself these questions:

-What has stopped me buying an investment property before?

-Why do I really want to invest in property?

-What does it really mean to me/will it mean to me?

-How much time each week do I/can I and will I allocate to achieving this?

-What’s one thing I can do tomorrow to take one step closer to my goal?

#2 If you are currently looking to buy an investment property, challenge yourself to start thinking with the end in mind – map out how you could set yourself up for max upside and create multiple exits. If you have recently been analysing properties and turned them down, look back over your analysis notes with a fresh multi-stage cash exit perspective. How different would the numbers look with a combination of cash flow and flip profit?

#3 If you are not already operating SA units, do a little research on your desired area – go to booking.com, enter your location, enter a weekend and a midweek 3-4nt visit date, hit search and then filter by apartments (to eliminate hotels, guest houses etc) to see how many self catering options there are currently available. You can use this search to get a feel for the nightly rates in your area too.

#4 Start connecting with a few builders in your area to pick out the ones you might want on your power team.

#5 Start building up a record of the research you collect on potential investment areas ie an excel sheet with tabs for each location. On each sheet look at 2 and 3 bedroom properties for sale, look up the rightmove sold prices for the same postcode, look at the floor plans where available and start to get a feel for sales price per SQM in your areas.

#6 Join us on our online training webinar, Property ATM MASTERCLASS: HOW TO GET STARTED DE-RISKING PROPERTY DEALS AND BUYING WITH CONFIDENCE – FOR MULTIPLE EXITS,  HIGHEST RETURNS AND PEACE OF MIND 

Click here to register for our free online training 

Chris and I hope that in reading these posts you have either learned something knew, or were reminded of something you knew, but will now go and use.

Picking up from where we left off in post 4, we were projecting ahead to once a property is refurbed and ready, advocating that it’s important to start monetising it asap. We have referred to working with the end in mind since post 1, so it goes without saying that this important stage will have been worked out before.

Cash Exit 1 is all about monetising the asset quickly and for this our strategy of choice is serviced accommodation. As the refurb approaches completion focus will need to transition to these key areas of setting up for business, to include:

• Furnishing for the end audience
• Capturing quality photos for marketing (ideally professional)
• Nightly pricing across the year
• Creating listings on OTAs (online travel agents)
• Setting up the operations for running the property end to end from booking, taking payment, to welcome packs, check ins, end of stay cleans, and then ready to go again
• Maintenance management
• Revenue management each month and the accounting

Because we start with the end in mind and de-risk the investment, the diligence at the front has informed what audience we are primarily serving and therefore many of the answers to the points above. [HINT – we have tried both avenues of setting up properties- ie on one hand throwing up an SA unit and reacting to who comes in through booking platforms, and on the other hand identifying the guest demand first and then serving that specifically with the properties we bring to market. We know which we’d rather have].

SA doesn’t have to be the only cashflow exit 1, it is just our preferred option. The whole point being that we want to have options. Other investors may wish to simply single let via an agent, or even do the SA thing using an SA managing agent. We like managing ourselves as it feeds into a later stage exit.

So this brings me neatly into Cash Exit 2 for the medium term and beyond. Here we need to look at the money making operations and future options.

Looking beyond the immediate term, some investors may be thinking, like us about developing their own in house expertise in running and managing serviced accommodation. Moving from one to many SA units may be on the cards and if so it will involve refining the operations, putting systems in place, potentially hiring part time, permanent or freelance team members.

An alternative medium to longer term option might be selling the refurbished property after a period of cashflow. By doing this, the synergy of your monthly net profit from cash exit 1, combined with the capital gain of selling the property (after your refurb uplift), would for sure make a case for ‘The Whole being Greater than the Sum of its Parts’.  The investor may not want to sell, in fact some people hate selling property, but you do need to know that if you needed to sell at a price with a satisfactory profit, any one of your properties could do that for you. It’s such an empowering mindshift – even if you aren’t planning to sell, only invest in properties that give multiple exits.

The lifeblood of any property business that wants to scale is positive cashflow and big chunks of cash. Now you might go down the route where you sell one property for every 3 you buy, and that in theory can work, but it’s a bit too rigid for us, because how do you know/control which one will sell for profit? Ideally you keep growing and retaining your property portfolio because it is all working for you nicely.

When do people really need to sell a property? When they need chunks of cash. An investor may have a deal opportunity come up with they don’t want to miss out on but simply don’t have enough cash to get involved. That is when they’d want to pick one/some of their properties, know they are going to sell for a profit, sell them and raise the capital to progress with bigger deals. So yes, the payoff is a nice cash lump sum, but really, the underlying benefit is the peace of mind knowing that one can release a cash lump sum if and when they need it. Creating cash to have options.

The point we are making is, you don’t have to sell them, you just have know that you could if you needed to or indeed wanted to.

So, what Chris and I are working on is only acquiring properties where we set ourselves up with the options – either selling because it’s a great deal for another investor/a homebuyer or we can cashflow it ourselves (or even both). And where this came from is that for months and months, even after we’d done lots of training, if we can be honest, we were just too scared to buy something because we weren’t sure whether it would sell for enough or not. So we then naturally started looking for properties that we could either be turned into SA or that we could flip for a massive amount- the latter is what we couldn’t find unless we added even more of a premium somewhere – and THAT’s our system. We force the value by how we fufurb the property AND how we cashflow it.

In the next post we’ll look to summarise the key points and put together a mini action plan.

CLICK HERE FOR SUMMARY AND ACTION PLAN

 

 

As the refurb on our current project got underway this week, starting with the rip out (some progress pics attached), we moved a step closer to the monetising stage. Whilst not there yet, it’s this end game where all the planning and reverse engineering began. This final phase in our refined approach is what has really injected a solid layer of confidence in our buying. The reason why we can have such peace of mind is because we start out with the end in mind – that end being to set ourselves up for maximum returns and for multiple possible exits. 

 

This 3rd phase in our approach is all about ‘Monetising’ the investment and we see this part as having 2 main steps – Cash Exit 1 and Cash Exit 2. Once the transformation of the refurb is complete we look at cash exit 1, in other words, what can we do to quickly start making some money from the investment. Selling straight away would likely return a nice little lump sum however the timeframe would be unpredictable. In the immediate term, cash flow could (and should be coming in) and this could come from either a standard single let or via serviced accommodation. We favour the latter for a multitude of reasons.

Over the last couple of years we have built up a decent SA business serving predominantly contractors but also some tourism stays. Our growing strength in this area has proven it to be the most profitable and attractive first stage exit for any property we would choose to acquire. The house we purchased a year ago has proven to be a phenomenal cash flowing asset operating as serviced accommodation. It has performed at over 82% average occupancy since we began operating it and the profit margin is over 40% of the monthly booking revenue.

If the reference to cash exit 1 is sounding confusing or cryptic, forgive me I’ll explain the rationale. If you have read Post 1 you may remember we made the admission that Chris and I are fairly risk averse and we were stuck not buying property for 2 years, not for lack of desire I might add. So, in order to de-risk our investments and pull the trigger on something we had to force ourselves to identify multiple potential exits.

The power of looking at an investment from this perspective is that it really takes the pressure off from one single exit having to go your way. Not only, that it can provide flexibility further down the line. As an example, an investor may be looking to simply cashflow a newly acquired and refurbed property for the foreseeable future. The investor may not have to sell the property, but if they did need to (or choose to) wouldn’t it be comforting to know they have created a premium uplift in the property that is waiting to be released at a future point?

Vice versa, if the objective was to sell, wouldn’t it be nice to know you can generate an income from the property until the sale actually happens?

Interestingly I sort of did this unknowingly with my first buy to sell. About 6 years ago, I was eager to try out a flip project and bought a 1 bed flat in Edinburgh with this intention. It needed a facelift, and having improved the layout (ie opening up the kitchen/living, moving the bathroom and decorating throughout) my plan was to flip it for a quick profit. With the sale taking a little longer than hoped I was able to secure a few short lets (not serviced) through a brilliant agent. Within the space of 9 months from start to finish I was able to achieve my desired result of selling for a profit (just over the personal CGT allowance), plus with the added bonus of some rental profit to cover some of the professional costs and selling fees.

The monetising phase definitely warrants a little more attention so we will follow up with a little more on Cash Exit 1 and 2 in the next post.

CLICK HERE FOR PART 5 ON MONETISING YOUR INVESTMENT

 

 

In Part 1 of this blog series we shared how for a period of time we were a little stuck and didn’t buy anything for about 2 years. However we’ve transitioned into the kind of investors who can de-risk the deal and buy with confidence. We introduced the 3 key areas we cover off to help do this and in this post I’ll run through an overview of that first main area – The buying.

This phase is made up of several steps which we’ve distilled below. It’s by no means an exhaustive list  but to serves as a reference point for getting closer to being that confident, de-risked investor.

Key areas to go through and put in place:

AREA & SOURCING

It might sound simple but the whole approach here is about thinking with end in mind and working back from those desired exits. Compare that with purely considering property that ‘looks cheap’ and you get a very different outcome. The first property I bought in 2007 was because it ‘looked cheap’. OK I had to cut my teeth on something but knowing what I know I wouldn’t buy it again.

Briefly on area – Chris and I both live about 45 mins from our nearest major city so have had the opportunity to consider the spectrum of city centre property right out to semi rural villages. The key things we have been looking for is to find the balance point between enough reduction in the price of bricks and mortar from city centre yet with enough surrounding demand and infrastructure to support a few exits. I’ll come back to exits in Part 4 but for us a major focus is serviced accommodation. We prefer outskirts and secondary towns to achieve this balance.

Briefly on sourcing – you could consider engaging sourcers, do the leaflet dropping thing and try to find the motivated sellers etc. The most straightforward, and the one that provides enough stock is of course open market property being sold by agents.

ANALYSIS AND VIEWINGS

Thinking with the end in mind you want to be asking yourself, is this to sell on straight away, to hold for cash flow and refinance, or maybe a hybrid to cash flow to recoup some costs for a period and then sell to release all your funds along with the upside of a light refurb?

We aim to minimise speculative viewing by having done all the desk analysis at home in advance. A simple spreadsheet with some formulas to work out rough total costs against various exits is all that it takes. Assessing as many reasonable comparables as you can is key to your understanding too ie previous sold prices in the area, what else is currently for sale, and getting that down to sales price per square metre where possible.  Go to viewings prepped with your own checklist of what you’re looking for so you can then do a more accurate costing of refurb works. We have found viewings to be a great opportunity to build rapport with agents and to tap into their local knowledge of what is underpriced, what’s in demand, reasonable end sales values etc.

FINANCING AND BUYING ENTITY

This will clearly be based on personal circumstances but it’s fair to say that investors have multiple options to consider to purchase a property (particularly if it’s under £200K):

-100% your own cash

-enough of your cash to put down a deposit

-JV loan

-bridging (whilst convenient, very expensive)

-unsecured business loans

Due to harsh tax changes over recent years there will be fewer investors buying property in their personal name these days. Yes you will have capital gains allowance when you sell (the first one at least, there’s a bit more to it than that), however limited companies or LLP’s are becoming more the investor norm.

WHO – KEY PEOPLE IN YOUR POWER TEAM

Builder – this is huge in being able to buy with confidence when starting out. Being able to walk round a viewing with a trusted tradesperson is significant – find a friendly builder or even JV with one.

Solicitor – good to start a relationship with a property solicitor rather than a generalist because as you grow into more complex deals you will need that professional support – all adds to buying with confidence.

Broker – as per the point about which entity you buy with, more often than not you will need a commercial broker.

JV partners – we have found the easiest place to start is friends and family who like the idea and security of property investing but don’t have the time or education to do it. Working outwards from there can become more natural with a few deals under the belt, getting out to property events/courses and talking about what you’re doing.

Estate Agents – start and build the relationship, treat them well and do what you say you will. This is easier when you choose to commit to an area.

Of course, over the years our feel for our areas has gone from nothing to something based on having viewed and analysed many properties. However what we’ve found is that once we committed to a few selected postcodes it becomes much easier to do the analysis and arrive at decisions.

In the next post we’ll look at some of the main considerations for adding value through the refurb.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO NEXT POST

 

Very recently Chris and I had shared that we bought a tired 3 bed property to refurb and flip. What we didn’t explicitly share is that we did so with total conviction and confidence about the end to end process and our exits. Reflecting on the last couple of years, we only wish we had the same confidence starting out. When we first formed our business partnership just over 2 years ago the plan was to buy and flip, and source packaged BTL deals for investors. How could we go wrong when we had my previous 8+ years of single let and HMO investing experience combined with Chris’ 15+ years in the building and development trade.

   

Here’s Chris (pic1) and me (pic 2) at our recent acquisition.

The thing is, we are both fairly risk averse people and when investing with our own, and potential investor money, we didn’t want to gamble on the hope of making money thanks to a fairly strong market and the hype that can come with our Scottish closed bid buying system. With that in mind, the solution had to be to buy below market value and then force the value with Chris’ building and joinery skills. (In hindsight we would have got away with doing that based on how the market has been since 2015, but hindsight is 20:20 isn’t it?). The reality however was that whilst we did put multiple offers in, there was no securing a property for below market value in the kind of areas we were focusing on. As educated property investors we couldn’t accept paying much more than home report value for a property, to then be constrained to only one possible outcome to really make any money ie sell it in a bidding war. The result, we didn’t buy anything for 2 years. Instead, we diverted focus to starting and scaling a R2R SA portfolio.

The SA portfolio has been and continues to be great for us. However, the aim was always to build up our own asset base and work towards the dual revenue strategy of a monthly cashflowing business (ie the SA portfolio) AND a source of periodic cash lump injections (ie from creating value and selling).

Perhaps we were too cautious previously, but it’s only reasonable for a property investor to want to de-risk a deal and have a few options to exit, right? It was just incredibly frustrating that our buying options (or at least the ones we could see) looked like roughly like this:

1. Force the value through refurb, but the only way to make more than 10% would be based on the ’hope’ that buyers get drawn into bidding a good bit over home report value.
2. If can’t sell hold for a while and let with cash tied up and unexciting returns in the single let market, combined with punitive legislation on the horizon.
3. Instead of turnaround flips consider a small site for build to sell where we essentially build in the 20%+ developer margin that one would hope however this would come with significant finance costs, development risk and the one exit of having to sell at the right price to cash out. The challenge we have found with many of the potential sites in Scotland that we have analysed is that the sales price per SQM is often not that much higher than the build cost per SQM. The result being that once you add the purchase of the land the deal either doesn’t stack or it doesn’t give enough margin to keep you safe.

 

So what’s so different now? Where has the confidence come from? A friend was asking about our journey the other day and it’s only when you get an external question like this that you stop for a moment and try to take a 30,000 foot view of your own situation. It was a very thought provoking question because on a day by day basis Chris and I have our heads in the detail of incremental progress, moving the property business forwards. This question made us take a step back and connect the dots in a more simplified overview.

What it boils down to are 3 key things or areas that we have gradually been able to refine and de-risk. Those 3 overarching areas lie in:

#1 the buying

#2 the converting and refurbing

#3 how we optimise the ways to monetise the finished product

Addressing these key areas effectively is what’s allowing us to de-risk deals and buy with confidence. In documenting our processes, we thought it would be a good exercise both for our own systemising, and for those out there getting started, if we elaborated a little on each main area over the next few posts.

 

Read the next post on buying here

My previous post covered an introduction to the Eisenhower Matrix as a framework to help conquer overwhelm and get important things done. As promised I wanted to post a follow up with a little more explanation and some pointers for implementing, if you’re interested.

Here’s a simplified explanation of the four quadrants:

1. Important and Urgent – for example a big direct booking that needs some fine tuning to get over the line, a hot prospect client/investor/property can meet you/be viewed at short notice
2. Important but Not Urgent  – doing exercise, business development long term planning, working on a project that will make your business scalable [many aspects of your big annual goals will sit in this quadrant]
3. Not Important but Urgent – various interruptions that break concentration, breaking your concentration to check every email and text the second you hear a “ping”, dealing with the person shouting the loudest
4. Not Important and Not Urgent – activities that just waste time, procrastination, going off on a web surfing tangent when researching properties, excess time checking the latest news, facebook updates

Needless to say, the first priority goes to the tasks that are both Important and Urgent. However as much as possible, the proactive person aims to spend most of their time in the Important but Not Urgent quadrant. These are the activities that can generate big results for you. [These are called Quadrant 2 activities-I like to challenge myself, and peers in mastermind groups, on how much time we are carving out for Quadrant 2 activities].

As the famous Eisenhower quote goes:

“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”

Without being mindful to prioritise effectively, a property entrepreneur can very quickly fall into the trap of rushing to deal with all the Urgent tasks (including the Urgent and Not Important) while the Important but Not Urgent tasks get pushed down the list.

After dealing with your Urgent and Important tasks, your second priority should always be to invest time on the Important tasks that are Not Urgent. Only after some time in quadrant 2 should you move onto the urgent but not important tasks.

As for things in the 4th quadrant, well you really want to start dropping these. This is an opportunity to create more time for the important things in your day.

 

Building this into your life

Like all good habits, this takes a period of intentionally phasing it in. However with a little effort, the practice of consciously filtering your tasks and incoming distractions based on their importance, will result in you becoming more productive as you do less of the Not Important things.

Plan ahead and start with the tasks that are important. Mastering this practice will give you a powerful advantage and a feeling of control in all areas you choose to apply it.

Now, because I know that life and business can throw all sorts at us, here’s an extra little hint that I learned from my accountability coach – schedule in a daily “chaos hour” to your diary. Use this time to finish off loose ends that originated from the Urgent and Important things cropping up earlier in the day. If you’ve had a good day with no major interruptions then use this time for more Important but not Urgent activities.

Last week I wrote about reflecting on where you stand on your Q1 goals. With the Easter Holidays in full swing (or at any time of year for that matter) it can be a real challenge to feel like we are moving the ball forwards on our big property goals.

In our serviced accommodation business the daily operational demands fluctuate in volume but can often feel like we have to be focused purely on reactive tasks. In other words reacting to all of the day’s demands as they arise, such as incoming booking requests, check-ins, email, snail mail, incoming calls, interruptions, cleaner/maintenance conversations etc.

This modus operandi of best laid plans dissolving to stop/start execution and lots of reaction can lead to that common feeling of stress and overwhelm. I’m guessing everyone can relate to finishing a day’s work with a long list of outstanding to-do’s and a feeling of anxiety, that “I’ve got too much to do!” feeling.

For us running our SA business and Chris also running a large residential extension it’s so key for us to carve out regular time for the strategic and proactive things. One of those big proactive things for us right now is the 3 bedroom flat we’ve recently bought that we will transform with a full refurb and monetise via our existing SA model. Of course we want to monetise it quickly, but no one is screaming at is to do it. There’s no squeaky wheel as it’s all proactive stuff.

Chris and I were chatting with some friends this week about this balance of managing reactive and proactive tasks and it reminded me of the Eisenhower box. I discovered it several years ago and using the framework to plan my days has been hugely beneficial.

Everyone has 176 hours in their week, the major difference is how we choose to spend them. Choose being the operative word. Yes, you have a choice to re-frame your day and the way you operate.

Introducing The Eisenhower Box

As the name implies, this concept was originally credited to US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In deciding how to prioritise his time across tasks, it is said he would ask himself two questions. First, is the task important? Second, is it urgent? Of course you will have to define your own meaning of important.

 

 

 

Using this framework we can categorise each of our tasks and projects into one of these four quadrants within a few minutes. Taking a proactive approach means we focus on the tasks that sit in the Important but Not Urgent quadrant.

In the past when I had found myself slipping into reactive modus operandi the feelings of stress and overwhelm creeping in felt horrible. That’s why I have found this matrix to be so powerful in re-framing the day or week with priority and focus. Even if it is just a 60-90 minute focus session in the morning (with the phone off) dedicated to a proactive project then incremental progress is achieved and I and I can feel good at the end of the day. So for example, these sessions can be blocked out for Chris and I to project plan the refurb to SA for our latest property.

There will always be those fires to put out and certain time sensitive tasks but you’ll be surprised at how these reduce when you work in a proactive manner.

 

[Image credit: Tools Hero]