Productivity and Preachers

In the fall of 1973 a man lay on the ground of the Princeton Theological Seminary campus in need of help. He claimed to have been mugged and cried out for help.

If you needed help you could do worse than to find yourself on a seminary campus. But one after another, students passed by the man and didn’t offer to help.

In turns out that the students that passed by were all part of a psychology experiment. The were told to arrive at chapel to deliver a sermon and then subsequently told that the timing of the sermon had been changed and that they were running late.

So in their haste, they stepped aside the man that was “hurt” to not delay those in attendance any further. Ironically, they were to deliver a sermon on the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan.

Setting yourself up to fail

The researchers in this study helped to show that the environment around is us is much more powerful that we tend to realize. Intuitively, this should make sense. I eat more at Thanksgiving. I rest more on vacation. I exercise more in the summer. Nothing about me has changed — the environment around me has changed.

We’ve recently written about how you can improve your business in 2017. Now is the time to plan for growth and success.

If you don’t make time and space for longer term planning (working on your business vs working in your business) you are setting yourself up to fail. It’s like showing up to the Thanksgiving meal on the first day of a diet. I know what the outcome would be for me.

Changing the environment

Here are three tips to help stack the deck in your favor and make sure that you stick to your plans for 2017:

Tip 1: Block time on your calendar every day for advancing your mortgage business goals. If possible, do this in the morning before the day gets away from you. Also, I’ve found it to be helpful to make the time block small. It’s easier to focus intensely for 25 minutes verses three hours. Plus you can’t ignore calls from a client or real estate agent for hours at a time. There is an entirely productivity philosophy called the Pomodoro Technique that calls for periods of 25 minutes of focus.

Tip 2: Eliminate distractions that might draw you back in to urgent but less important work. I like to silence my phone, but my computer into do not disturb mode and maximize the window of whatever I’m working on.

Tip 3: Use technology to help automate routine tasks that you do every day. Mortgage automation, especially creating a digital mortgage experience will help your clients and you save time. One of the reasons we created Maxwellwas to free loan officers from having to manage follow up with borrowers.

Bonus: Check out a full list of Maxwell features that can take your mortgage business to the next level in 2017. Mention this article and you’ll get a free month of Maxwell.

We hope that in 2017, you accomplish big things in your mortgage business. Create an environment sets you up to succeed.