BUILD-A-BROKER
BUILDING BROKER VOLUME
Eat Your Frogs First
Productivity tips for mortgage pros to have the most impact
W
e’re in a unique situation: pipelines are full, but given the coronavirus pandemic, we’re having to keep up with changes in the law, changes in business guidelines, and borrower inquiries. Using our days productively is now more critical than ever. If you feel like you’ve been stuck in a productivity rut recently or that you’re not being as effective as you could be given the current environment, maybe you need a new method of working. In this blog post, we’ll discuss productivity tips and tactics you can use to master your time and leave work feeling accomplished at the end of each day.
BEFORE WE BEGIN Here are just a few things to keep in mind before diving into these productivity tips. 1) Don’t try to incorporate all these tactics into your time management routine at once. Focus on one and master it, then evaluate whether you can and should add another one. 2) Whichever one of these tips you choose, remember to keep your meaningful goals at the forefront of your mind – preferably in your calendar. 3) Prioritize impactful actions over busy actions. Figure out where you make the most difference and try to automate tasks that don’t add as much value.
PERFORM A TIME STUDY ON YOURSELF We can hear your eyes rolling in their sockets. But trust us, tracking your time for just a week or two can help you identify where you’re spending time productively and where you’re wasting it. You can keep your time study on paper, or you can manage it digitally. Either way, work in 15- to 30-minute increments and write down what you were working on during that time spurt. All you need to do is set a timer for your chosen time interval and write out your results in a notebook or on an Excel spreadsheet at the end of each interval. Once you’ve done your time study, categorize your time into productive work, busy work, and distractions. Color code those times to see where you’re really spending your time.
If you set out with the mindset that you’re going to get the most difficult tasks out of the way at the beginning of the week, then you’ll be in a much more productive mindset. PEOPLE ON THE MOVE //
> Sierra Pacific
Mortgage hired Curtis Dair as chief financial officer, citing his three decades of diverse accounting, finance and lending services.
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| NATIONAL MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE
> Delane Olin
> Kelley
has been named chief lending officer for Home Point Financial.
Tillinghast joined Plaza Home Mortgage as senior vice president, chief underwriter.
> Gateway
Mortgage Group, a division of Gateway First Bank, has promoted Tina Knaut to regional vice president of the Southwest.