|
Rudder
Message to a property manager about Time Keeping |
February 13, 2025
Hi _______,
Your employer and I just finished our routine Thursday morning strategy meetup, we're working on formulating a 2025-2027 budget, haven't had one in several years, but now we have nine years of history to look back on that can help us put together some future numbers very confidently. I'll have a first draft ready by Feb 24. We're also discussing lead handling, time keeping, PTSD, and reactive vs proactive attitudes and work habits.
When we got to the budget discussion he asked, "Now exactly how would I go about doing that? Would I look at my bank statement, examining transactions one at a time and ask myself whether I want to continue them?"
Bear in mind I have been summarizing those very bank transactions in an accounting system for nine years.
NINE.
YEARS.
As patiently as I could manage, I said that no, that's not necessary, I have made it easier for you by summarizing them in your accounting system. We can just run a report, which we did.
Then I asked him why the first place his mind went when he thought about making a budget was to the bank statement and not the accounting system, when it has been at his fingertips for nine years. He didn't have an answer, he just looked chagrined.
This is an example, though, of how easy it is, out of sheer force of habit, to overlook valuable resources that are within easy reach and make our work unnecessarily difficult.
Where else is he doing things like that?
How about you?
How about me?
This gets back to Jay Papasan's book The One Thing which is about identifying the one thing we can do that would make everything else easier or unnecessary.
We spent 45 minutes discussing time keeping. Much of that time he was scolding himself for being inconsistent about it.
As we discussed back and forth, I came to realize that the effect time keeping (as well as financial accounting - really, any kind of historical chronicling) has, is to serve like a rudder on a ship. It's a thing that points backward, that helps the ship continue to move forward despite contrary wind, waves, and other forces. It's submerged, beneath the surface, unglamorous, just like the foundation of a skyscraper, yet it is the one thing that prevents the ship from drifting and keeps it moving forward.
Now, what is rudderless life - both work and personal - like?
It's reactive. It's adrift. It's irritable. It doomscrolls, constantly scanning one's environment for the next opportunity to be offended.
I see this happening everywhere I look. It's such a hassle having to walk on eggshells around irritable people, people whose main focus seems to be finding the next opportunity to be offended . . . hence the Karen meme, if you know what I mean . . . it's definitely a Thing, a dominant part of modern culture.
Hi _______,
Your employer and I just finished our routine Thursday morning strategy meetup, we're working on formulating a 2025-2027 budget, haven't had one in several years, but now we have nine years of history to look back on that can help us put together some future numbers very confidently. I'll have a first draft ready by Feb 24. We're also discussing lead handling, time keeping, PTSD, and reactive vs proactive attitudes and work habits.
When we got to the budget discussion he asked, "Now exactly how would I go about doing that? Would I look at my bank statement, examining transactions one at a time and ask myself whether I want to continue them?"
Bear in mind I have been summarizing those very bank transactions in an accounting system for nine years.
NINE.
YEARS.
As patiently as I could manage, I said that no, that's not necessary, I have made it easier for you by summarizing them in your accounting system. We can just run a report, which we did.
Then I asked him why the first place his mind went when he thought about making a budget was to the bank statement and not the accounting system, when it has been at his fingertips for nine years. He didn't have an answer, he just looked chagrined.
This is an example, though, of how easy it is, out of sheer force of habit, to overlook valuable resources that are within easy reach and make our work unnecessarily difficult.
Where else is he doing things like that?
How about you?
How about me?
This gets back to Jay Papasan's book The One Thing which is about identifying the one thing we can do that would make everything else easier or unnecessary.
We spent 45 minutes discussing time keeping. Much of that time he was scolding himself for being inconsistent about it.
As we discussed back and forth, I came to realize that the effect time keeping (as well as financial accounting - really, any kind of historical chronicling) has, is to serve like a rudder on a ship. It's a thing that points backward, that helps the ship continue to move forward despite contrary wind, waves, and other forces. It's submerged, beneath the surface, unglamorous, just like the foundation of a skyscraper, yet it is the one thing that prevents the ship from drifting and keeps it moving forward.
Now, what is rudderless life - both work and personal - like?
It's reactive. It's adrift. It's irritable. It doomscrolls, constantly scanning one's environment for the next opportunity to be offended.
I see this happening everywhere I look. It's such a hassle having to walk on eggshells around irritable people, people whose main focus seems to be finding the next opportunity to be offended . . . hence the Karen meme, if you know what I mean . . . it's definitely a Thing, a dominant part of modern culture.
Perhaps you may have noticed recently on Facebook, I quipped, repeating something my dad used to say, "Too bad there's no money in it!" He would say that about his various hobbies and interests like writing letters to the editor, or collecting & tinkering on old cars, or reading the newspaper, or puttering in his shop.
Last year I discarded half a dozen metal filing cabinets, which had been filled mostly with file folders about his various unprofitable diversions, which I have also recycled.
On Facebook I quipped, it's too bad there's no money in doomscrolling, in being offended. If there were, we could all retire tomorrow, because it seems like everybody is doing it!
So how does anyone get out of the doomscrolling, offense-taking death spiral, and graduate to what Jim Collins (Good to Great) calls the Flywheel Effect, where you develop positive inertia in your life that spins up and builds on itself?
I would say, you get yourself some kind of rudder that keeps you going in a desired direction regardless of contrary winds and waves.
Or to use another analogy, there is flak. That is shrapnel that strikes airplanes in battle. In the property management industry, you are constantly taking flak. Without some kind of rudder, what effect does that have on a person? It's formative. It's habit forming.
Without some kind of rudder, those working conditions would reduce anyone to a Hot Mess of PTSD. How could they not?
So after 45 minutes of discussion back and forth, this is the realization where we arrived. Why do time keeping? It's so you can have that rudder that can keep you moving forward. In practical terms, it means having something that, after having taken flak or having been blown off course yet again, you can refer to as you ask the question, "Now where was I?"
That's what I do, every day. "Now, where was I?" If you track your time, it's very easy to answer that question. If you don't, it can be quite difficult, and you become a hostage to your own impulses, or others'. My son quotes Epictetus to me, "No man is free who is ruled by his impulses."
This is why we believe it's important to track your time now, and we hope that once you're in the habit, you can lead the others by example, so that the whole organization can progress forward with a solid institutional rudder no matter what landlords, tenants, vendors, or others may throw at us. After whatever happens, we can always ask ourselves "Now where were we?" and press on with a solid answer.
So tomorrow, let's have a Rudder Discussion and see where it takes us. Thanks for reading.
Last year I discarded half a dozen metal filing cabinets, which had been filled mostly with file folders about his various unprofitable diversions, which I have also recycled.
On Facebook I quipped, it's too bad there's no money in doomscrolling, in being offended. If there were, we could all retire tomorrow, because it seems like everybody is doing it!
So how does anyone get out of the doomscrolling, offense-taking death spiral, and graduate to what Jim Collins (Good to Great) calls the Flywheel Effect, where you develop positive inertia in your life that spins up and builds on itself?
I would say, you get yourself some kind of rudder that keeps you going in a desired direction regardless of contrary winds and waves.
Or to use another analogy, there is flak. That is shrapnel that strikes airplanes in battle. In the property management industry, you are constantly taking flak. Without some kind of rudder, what effect does that have on a person? It's formative. It's habit forming.
Without some kind of rudder, those working conditions would reduce anyone to a Hot Mess of PTSD. How could they not?
So after 45 minutes of discussion back and forth, this is the realization where we arrived. Why do time keeping? It's so you can have that rudder that can keep you moving forward. In practical terms, it means having something that, after having taken flak or having been blown off course yet again, you can refer to as you ask the question, "Now where was I?"
That's what I do, every day. "Now, where was I?" If you track your time, it's very easy to answer that question. If you don't, it can be quite difficult, and you become a hostage to your own impulses, or others'. My son quotes Epictetus to me, "No man is free who is ruled by his impulses."
This is why we believe it's important to track your time now, and we hope that once you're in the habit, you can lead the others by example, so that the whole organization can progress forward with a solid institutional rudder no matter what landlords, tenants, vendors, or others may throw at us. After whatever happens, we can always ask ourselves "Now where were we?" and press on with a solid answer.
So tomorrow, let's have a Rudder Discussion and see where it takes us. Thanks for reading.
For your success,
Kris Freeberg, Economist
Making End$ Meet
(360) 224-432
