In property management we often find ourselves saying, “I don’t have enough hours in the day.” Today, everyone wants things done instantly and many times our personal expectations create undue stress. We fill every waking hour with some sort of activity, job, or assignment leaving little to no time for ourselves. As technology advances, we are constantly plugged-in and our attention span continues to diminish. In 2015, Time Magazine reported that adults now have an average attention span of 8 seconds. Eight seconds! Can you say Snapchat? Our lives are stressful, busy and full of distractions, in fact just reading this article can seem overwhelming for some. No worries! Make time for what is important and create space for your own personal enjoyment with these quick tips for getting out of your own way and getting things done.

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Let’s be honest – Your service team routinely goes above and beyond their regular duties. They take care of anything and everything that is put in front of them. Grounds, service requests, make readies, resident relations and a number of other tasks. Even though you know how important they are, you may not always show it. The office is busy, maintenance is busy and there is just not enough time to show your appreciation. To truly appreciate your service team, just imagine where your property would be without them. I would like to share with you 5 ways that you can show maintenance some love!  Consider taking advantage of these ideas, or brainstorming some more of your own, to use during National Maintenance Appreciation Month in October.

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Sometimes it seems there is more to accomplish than the hours in the day will allow! We spend many days running at a frantic pace in an effort to keep up in order to get everything done and in doing so, we don’t consider the impact on our own lives. We all have those days when you want to hop in your car and drive the next state over. Before you fill your gas tank I suggest taking a moment to read this list of suggestions that will help you take better care of yourself and ultimately be happier at work. Need proof? Let’s just say I am still in Virginia and am happier than ever!

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A 30 day challenge is a great way to force yourself out of your comfort zone and revamp how you do your job, improve personal skills and work towards your life’s purpose. Why 30 days? Because in 30 days you can literally change something important but it’s also short enough to be totally manageable (I can DO this for 30 days!). Try it and you’ll find you are 30 days away from being a better leader, a better sales person (what if your goal was to make one sales call a day for 30 days?), have higher resident retention, inspire your team members (what if your goal was to email teams a fast idea/tip every day to help them do their jobs better?) or eat healthier/ be a better listener/ start a blog, learn the basics of a new language or have your waistband be looser in 30 days?

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In a lot of respects it doesn’t make sense to review your performance (or a team member’s performance) only once a year.

A new trend is doing quarterly evaluations. If your company doesn’t do quarterly evals, perhaps do one on yourself. Reviewing where you are and where you are going four times a year will really help direct where you end up.

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So I’ve always been one of those people who prefer to “do it myself”. If you want the job done and done right, you may as well just do it yourself – right? I’m sure many of you are the same way – most Type A personalities are. But I’m also sure many of us (being the Type A personalities that we are), have read numerous books and articles on leadership and business development that advised against trying to “do it all” and instead urged us to delegate, share responsibilities and give our understudies a chance to learn how to do what we do. But this rule seems to apply more to “people” than it does to “marketing”. And thankfully, while I’ve learned share responsibilities with my peers better over the years, I’ve still been applying this mentality to my marketing efforts – and it does pay off.

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Last week I sat at the lunch counter at a local San Francisco burger café. I was having an out of body experience enjoying the most intense, juicy, delicious mouth watering cheeseburger of my life. Without realizing, I became hypnotized watching the lead Line Cook. The hustle and chatter of the café, coffee pots clanging and the vocals of Buddy Holly suddenly faded to silence. Like a slow motion movie scene he was a master of hyper-tasking and orchestrated seven
individual cooks into a fluid dance of co-dependant intertwined steps creating the most delicious cheeseburger one will ever taste. My admiration grew witnessing his ability to call upon each cook and in turn their instant response to him without ever looking away at their station. At times cooks would take over other stations to maintain this rhythmic flow of energy, as they instinctively understood how each step was dependant on the other. Each individual, yet when combined through teamwork, together create a culinary masterpiece.

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Glassdoor, an online career site, found that more than 80% of employees report they are motivated to work harder when their boss gives them appreciation for their work (2013). Alternatively, only 40% of those surveyed said that they’re more motivated when they feel that their job is in question or that their boss is demanding. Given the data collected by this and countless other surveys over the last few years, it seems quite clear that showing your employees the love is the best way to ensure top level performance from them.

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by Mark Juleen

Here’s a little secret: I have a tough time viewing myself as a leader. As I thought about the topic of leadership and how it relates to what I do in my role, I struggled with the idea. So, I did what any nerdy, social media, tech guy does and turned to the Internet. My network of peers and Google came to the rescue. After doing my homework, I discovered that most of what I do in my role is act as a change agent. I suppose I never really looked at that as a leadership type of role. However, that’s my mission. I lead change. It’s something I do naturally, but I’m definitely not perfect at it. I feel it’s challenging to rally different personalities to accept change, but I’d like to share with you how I think about leading change and the challenges that come along with it.

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