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REI Tech

Are Important Tasks Slipping Through The Cracks?

dogEver notice how rare commercial plane crashes are in the United States? One expert rates your chances of dying in a crash about the same as being struck by lightning 7 times!  That’s some pretty slim chances.

The numbers of fatal crashes have gone done significantly in the past 50 years or so:

accidents

But when planes do crash, over half of the crashes are due to ‘pilot error.’ Ever seen a commercial cockpit? Pilots have an awful lot of stuff to remember.

Do pilots just have incredible memories? I’m sure their spouses would say that’s not the case. Especially on anniversaries.

One major reason that pilot error has been reduced is a simple device called a checklist.  Pilots must perform their checklists at certain phases of their flights such as takeoff and landing. The checklist makes sure that nothing critical is left out. Even veteran pilots with decades of flying still read and tick off a checklist as they perform their tasks.

Doctors are picking up on the idea of checklists as well. Peter Pronovost, a doctor at Johns Hopkins University, introduced a simple checklist for inserting a tube into a person’s body to prevent infection. In one year, a simple checklist brought the patient infection rate at their hospital from 11% to zero.

checklistThat meant they prevented 43 infections and eight deaths compared with the previous year. It also saved the hospital more than $2 million.  His story is here.

Are Mistakes Costing Your Real Estate Business?

Although airlines and doctors are dealing with people’s lives, they are also businesses dealing with money. Don’t you think the same lessons could apply to your real estate business?

Checklists could:

  • Make you more efficient
  • Save you money
  • Impress inspectors who want to see if you are running your business well
  • Keep you out of legal trouble

There is a ton of stuff to remember in real estate investing.  Many investors’ ‘To-Do’ lists can be enormous.

Even worse is the nature of real estate investing.  Doctors and pilots generally have their checklists in one specific location. Many airplanes allow pilots to pull up checklists electronically on their dashboards. At least the pilots have their flight bag with them wherever they go.

Doctors work at the same office or hospital, generally. Their rooms can have checklists at their desks, on their walls or some other location in the same rooms.

Real estate investors are very mobile. They find themselves in all different locations:

  • Negotiating with a motivated seller at the seller’s house
  • Sitting in a Title Agent’s office for a closing (and hopefully receiving a check)
  • Pulling a permit at the city or county offices
  • Shopping for construction materials
  • At home setting up a marketing campaign from their computer

They also wear everything from suits to painting clothes in their businesses.

to-doAll of these scenarios require multiple tasks and things to remember. Wouldn’t a checklist help? A checklist that is with you all the time? 

Consider also that many real estate investors are using other people working for them:

  • Contractors
  • Property Managers
  • Virtual Assistants
  • Real Estate Agents
  • Stagers

To name a few…

Could it be helpful to hand these other people a checklist to make sure everything you want gets done? Have you ever had someone on your team forget something?

Yup – There’s an App For That

We found a great little app that creates both ‘To Do’ lists and checklists. It’s called TickTick.  TickTick is a simple app that lets you put everything you need together in one place. That way you don’t have to rely on your brain to remember everything.

TickTick also works on virtually every platform there is, so you can bring it with you wherever you go.

access

TickTick has a free version that will satisfy the vast majority of users. But there is also a Premium edition for $19.99/year or $1.99/month. As you can see below, the Premium version gives you more To-Do lists and checklist items.

freepremium

 

The Premium version also gives you more access to the calendar features of the app.  If you are happy with your current calendar, and you don’t have a lot of tasks, you may want to just use the free version.

Of course, if you are a successful investor and don’t have many tasks on your lists, we would love to know how you do it!

Here is a rundown of all the features we believe makes this app well-suited for real estate investors:

  • The ability to attach documents and links to each task so you don’t have to go looking for them
  • Prioritization of different tasks by color to make those get done
  • The ability to share lists, modify them and collaborate with others
  • Connection with your GPS to receive reminders when you’re in a specific location
  • Automatically turn emails into tasks
  • Use Siri or other voice recognition to create tasks when you think about them and can’t input them manually
  • Import tasks from other calendars
  • Create multiple reminders so the task is not forgotten if you can’t get to it on the first reminder
  • Checklists can be attached to certain tasks so the task becomes ‘Do the Checklist’

TickTick is much more than a normal ‘To Do” list app.  It can really help you organize your investing business better and ensure the important stuff gets done in a timely manner.  If you would like to learn more about TickTick other than just going to the website, there is a manual for the app online here.

Talk It Up

Have you used TickTick? Tell us about it in the comments section below

 

Do It To It! Immediate Action Steps

Create Systems and Processes – You really can’t grow your business above a certain size if you don’t have systems in place. Checklists are a great way to create systems.

Review Your Systems Regularly – Are there steps you can eliminate or automate so you don’t have to do them anymore? The name of the game is Maximum Gain – Minimum Effort.

Learn From Others – See how other successful investors run their business.  Copy from them if they have a good idea. Share your ideas with others. 

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