Juggling work & life is always challenging as a real estate agent but it's not something to ignore! In this episode, we share how we tackle the big issues such as taking care of our health, our loved ones & still running a rockstar business. This episode should help you create new rules for your business that don't hurt your business. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your health & happiness for your business & we're here to share that you don't have to! We might not be experts on this subject yet but we're sharing things that work well in our day-to-day to keep us from the burn out. We'd also love for you to share what works for you & help your work-life balance! Grab a coffee or cocktail & join us as we dive in
Juggling work & life is always challenging as a real estate agent but it's not something to ignore! In this episode, we share how we tackle the big issues such as taking care of our health, our loved ones & still running a rockstar business. This episode should help you create new rules for your business that don't hurt your business. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your health & happiness for your business & we're here to share that you don't have to! We might not be experts on this subject yet but we're sharing things that work well in our day-to-day to keep us from the burn out. We'd also love for you to share what works for you & help your work-life balance! Grab a coffee or cocktail & join us as we dive in
Welcome to. It's Always Sunny in Colorado. I'm Lauren Galbate.
Speaker 2:And I'm Todd Galbate and we're a top producing father-daughter real estate team in Northern Colorado.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk real estate. Okay, hey, cheers, cheers. Welcome back to another episode of it's Always Sunny in Colorado. Today we're going to talk about work-life balance, which is always difficult when you are a real estate agent, because your everyday is work and it's difficult. So, yeah, we're going to jump into kind of our tips and tricks, what we don't do well and what we kind of you know, some rules that we set for ourselves.
Speaker 2:But, um, yeah, feel free to learn from our mistakes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. What are you drinking, Ned?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm drinking water, and I know that's unusual for me, but I got. Speaking of work-life balance, I got a late start today and got on the treadmill a lot later than I wanted to, in fact just in the last hour or so, and I am dehydrated. So I am drinking a big cold glass of snow melt Colorado water.
Speaker 1:Okay, what are you?
Speaker 2:drinking.
Speaker 1:You don't have chocolate syrup on top of your snow melt, do you?
Speaker 2:I don't, it's just water.
Speaker 1:Did you see that from Reese Witherspoon? She made like a snow cone. It was gross. It was she like took snow outside from outside and poured and put chocolate syrup on top and was like, oh my God, it's amazing, it was like chocolate ice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It went viral.
Speaker 2:I heard her getting backlashed about that.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you did see it yeah.
Speaker 2:I didn't see it, but I heard about the backlash.
Speaker 1:Oh, it looked disgusting. I mean backlash, I don't know whatever, but like gross.
Speaker 2:Maybe that was the backlash was. Ooh, you know things live in my yard.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Eat after them.
Speaker 1:Speaking of also work-life balance, I'm having my second espresso of the day, and I already had. I already had an espresso this morning and a coffee after my workout, and now I'm having my second espresso, and I had iced tea at lunch. That is how exhausted I am from work last week.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, you know, I thought maybe you were doing your makeup a little differently, but you're just wide-eyed.
Speaker 1:That is rude.
Speaker 2:Woo. Yeah, we had quite a week last week, yeah, and that's why you know we talked. That's why this is such a good topic today, because, oh my God, you know, last week was seven days of nonstop action.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:It's a good time to take a little break and talk about how do we do things differently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when we have really busy weeks that go into the weekend, my Mondays feel like almost a hangover, like we got like almost. When you're in motion constantly and then you finally get to rest, it just like takes you down. And I've been noticing my Mondays. I am just exhausted and I think it's because we've been, you know, working Saturdays and Sundays. We've been doing open houses, we've been showing, we've been writing offers, we've been, I don't know, just it just hasn't really stopped. And then Mondays seem to be slower, because I think we got it all done on the weekend.
Speaker 2:But like I am dragon today, yeah Well, I had to come out of the gate hard today with you know, helping a client out with a septic pump and inspection, and it's just like you know, talking to several agents about this open house schedule we have. It's like crazy, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm ready to podcast as my only balance where I get to not work but talk about work. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you and I, when we get really, really busy and it's and again it goes into maybe the weekends, which happens very often for most real estate agents you and I are also very flexible and maybe we give each other grace and we give ourselves grace to take it a little bit easier on maybe the Mondays or the Fridays or whatever, like you know you have to like. For example, last weekend I knew that we were doing two open houses on Saturday, or an open house on Saturday, open house on Sunday, but I also knew we had kind of some in between work in the middle of that, so I knew it was going to be kind of, you know, couple hours each day. And so on Friday I kind of cut my day. I was done at three, I was like I'm like I'm not touching, you know, my email for the rest of the night.
Speaker 1:And then today I also was able to kind of take care of myself. I went to the gym, I woke up into the gym, showered, I cooked, I threw dinner in the crock pot and I think it was like 11 o'clock before I really sat down to my computer. And I don't care, because we kind of fill in work when you need to, and this was like what I need to do to balance myself out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. No, that's good, I try to do the same, you know, and you know. The thing is, there's some stuff where you just can't turn it off, and that was this morning for me.
Speaker 2:You know, I had a client call me, a contractor call me and you know something that needed to be addressed and so I'm hoping another day is my Monday, but you know it's it's it is. It is tough, you know I try to do the same and you know I've got a whole list of personal chores I need to do besides working out, and you know, and I'm trying to, you know, juggle it all and so today's been a little rougher for me. But yeah, I'm trying to plan that balance, so important have a little.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because most people do like their laundry and like their cleaning and meal planning and stuff on the weekends and when you don't get your weekend you got to kind of fill that in. I have a question for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you have any like tell tells, I guess, maybe like physical or emotional, or is there something that you feel that that indicates that you are off balance with the work and personal?
Speaker 2:That is a great question, I think. Yes, I'm a pretty I guess upbeat person, yeah, but boy, I notice myself being annoyed, easily annoyed, okay, when there's just nonstop no break for food or I've had to go to the bathroom for two hours. I'm thirsty, I'm talking too much, I don't have time to refill my glass. That was today. I was on the phone so much and I happened to be really thirsty and it's like I don't even have time to grab a drink because I was taking a pause off the treadmill. Yeah, I would say I'd get a little snippy, maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Maybe irritable or?
Speaker 2:Irritable, you know, easily bothered, it's like, oh gosh, what now? What's this kind of thing? And normally I'm not like that. So I know when I have that little feeling hit me, it's like all right, I need to take a break, because and we're probably like most agents, but I don't know when my I don't I eat lunch while I work if I'm not having lunch with somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's not something where I just sit down and turn on the television from noon to one and eat a sandwich and then go back to my desk. I eat when I have a break, and lots of times I'm eating when I'm working or doing things. Right now I'm doing a load of towels in the dryer. So yeah, sometimes I can tell when I'm been on a little too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not my best self.
Speaker 1:I can tell. Yeah, I know you can tell with me, but I can tell.
Speaker 2:I know you know me just about as more than anybody. And how about you? I know sometimes you get a little impatient with me or whatever. But what rolls? Your way to where you're saying, oh my God, I need a break.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, the impatience is huge, the irritability-ness I can tell when I yell at my puppy Pepper, when she's being cute and I'm on my laptop and she's putting her ball in my lap and she's like just a little bit ago she came over to my tennis shoes and she dropped her ball in my tennis shoe. So that was like a tizzy for her and so she was making all these noises and scratching at the wall to get to the ball in my tennis shoe.
Speaker 1:She couldn't get it out of the tennis shoe and I didn't yell at her this time. I feel pretty good right now, but there's times where I'll be like Pepper gosh and it's like whoa, this cute little furry thing who's doing nothing other than just wanting my attention. He's made me snap, and so that's one, and the one I noticed last week, because last week was a tizzy like holy cow. We had four listings go live, maybe two new ones coming up. It was just a little too much to juggle and I could tell I wasn't balancing well because I had to drive home in silence. I had no music, no podcast.
Speaker 1:And for me that is so weird because I was just telling my friend this I can't go on a walk with. If I'm by myself with Pepper, I have to have a podcast with him Podcast or music because I feel really lonely for some reason on a walk by myself. I know it doesn't make any sense, I can't explain it, but I'm also in the car, I feel very lonely and I feel sometimes like my thoughts aren't I don't know. I just like, I don't like sometimes just thinking I need like a distraction. Maybe that's what it is. I need a distraction because today was crazy and so I love a good like true crime podcast, where I love like I throw my 90s playlist on Spotify. But last week I needed silence in the car and I drove home all the way from our office to home in silence and it was like it felt really good because I needed.
Speaker 1:I needed nothing, like literally nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really similar. I don't like the silence either. I mean, when I'm either, when we're in our office, we listen to music. When we're together, but when we're apart and I'm at home working by myself, I always have music going. Yeah, I mean, you're either on my laptop or it's on a, you know, an Amazon Echo just playing throughout the house, yeah, and so, yeah, I could imagine you're at a breaking point if you needed silence, because that's the real. That's quite a reset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I think it's really good to know your signs, because then it's like you know if you have a kind of game, game plan in place which we'll talk about. You know when you, when you, when you're feeling that way, this is kind of what you do.
Speaker 2:Here's another, here's a curveball to throw out. There too is we're a team, yeah, and the planning is even more trickier because we don't communicate when we're going to check out for a little bit and take a break, yeah, and so, like today, I had to text you. Please call me, I need your help. Yeah, and you know I had to talk through something and you were doing, you know, your, your, I was all dressed for the treadmill and you were on your treadmill and we need you know, we needed to talk through a business decision quickly, and so then there's times where you know I'm going to chill out and switch to maybe something personal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I start seeing emails coming through from you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm like oh, I feel obligated, like I should be working too.
Speaker 1:So it's so it's trickier. I hate, I gotta say I hate when I'm trying to chill out, and you know, I did my work for the day and I started getting blown up at midnight. Well, you know, even just goodness like seven o'clock at night or I wake up to six am emails my dad. For those of you listening, my dad doesn't sleep very well, like at all, and so there's, I mean, you're a lot better. I used to get three am emails.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I hate it and I've tried at three am I just try to keep to myself.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you're still getting up at three am.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I have a weird like two to five, two am to five am period. Yeah, where it's, I'm up, and it isn't because I have to go to the bathroom or something, it's just like I just get up.
Speaker 1:You know what that is. There's going to be people who are listening, who are into possibly I don't know what you call it like. I mean like acupuncture. When you like Chinese medicine, the four window is like your kidney and liver or something like that, or like, or maybe it's your liver and spleen. It's like your imbalance, because I used to have the same thing and I used and I go to acupuncture. They were like when do you wake up? And I said you know two o'clock, in between two and four, and they're like oh, that's this window of your organs, and so I don't know, I get, I get.
Speaker 2:If my liver was saying what the hell?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would make sense. That checks out. Yeah, so yeah, but I mean you've gotten better at maybe not doing that. And so, speaking of like responding and response time, I mean Everybody is juggling. I mean the cool thing about realtors is like a lot of people Go into it so that they have the flexibility to do whatever they want whenever they want, you know, especially like when you have kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know you can go on the field trip or you can, you know, at three o'clock, when you got to go pick them up from school, you know you're maybe off until after dinner time and so Having strong boundaries of when you respond is important.
Speaker 1:But also keep in mind that you know most people and and at least the us culture People work, you know nine to five or whatever eight to five, eight to four, and so it's really important, in my opinion, to to make sure that you respond to people in working hours and you know if it's your clients, if it's your, you know another agent who you're working with on a different transaction, if it's, um, the lenders, you know making sure you get to them. You know between that time, because I always get frustrated when it's like I emailed them at noon, you know, and I go 24 hours without hearing them and I know they're not like out of town or I know Something's going on. It kind of it kind of disrupts. You know business and I think, just common courage to have that. But then again, after five o'clock you don't have to respond to anybody, just like everybody else in the world does.
Speaker 2:I know it. You know the thing is, I think you know we've and we've had some clients where you know when they get off work that's when they, you know, are ready to start talking about real estate, yeah, and so you know with with texting and emails, you can kind of check in with your clients all throughout the day, which which is kind of nice, but, um, but at the same time, yeah, there's times where some people can't get to you till they're off work, and so then you know when you're think your days end in, it's kind of starting with with Somebody on a different schedule.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's hard. Clients are different. Yeah, we're, we're here to kind of serve and, um, the cool thing is that you can be available to them. You know when it works for them. We were just talking to I was just talking to, um, a really sweet couple who have a, I think almost two year old, and I remember maybe one and a half year old, yeah anyway, and um, they were like, can we chit chat after bedtime, you know, which was seven thirty for me, and it's like, yeah, I mean that's what works for them. If I had kids I would. It probably also would work for me too, because I be put my kids down too, and so like, all works whatever in that time.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Um, but again, like, I think, the other, like agents and lenders, you know you got to get back to them. You know within 24 hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, um.
Speaker 1:What about your health? How do you prioritize and do work life balance with taking care of yourself?
Speaker 2:Boy, that's a great question because, um, you know, many of us are givers and and customer service folks and you know when, when you're those kind of people, you put yourself second a lot.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And so, uh, I am guilty of, you know, cutting a workout short, skipping a workout. I don't have time today um Grabbing something you know not good for me on the run.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:You know, um, you know, unfortunately there's a you know a lot of things that you can just keep in your car. Uh, aren't that great. You know they've got additives in it, and then all the stuff that comes out of a drive-through window is precarious. You know the the the one healthy thing is um A salad, but it's hard to go to town with a bowl and a fork when you're driving.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, um, yeah and so, um. So that is tricky, that is. That is a discipline that you really have to be better than At least me. But you know I, I'm trying to be better now. Like I said, I you know, the goal today was to get on the treadmill and I achieved that goal, but it wasn't what I wanted to, because I had an emergency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was way later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so again, um, I put myself second to deal with the emergency and you know kind of threw off my day and you know, but I managed to still fit that in and so that wasn't.
Speaker 1:That was an emergency, though, and I you don't have, we don't have those every day, so that was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's unique, but it's surprising how often it's like oh uh, I better take this and stop the treadmill, yeah, and walk out the room. But you're, you're pretty disciplined. Um, you know, go into the gym and scheduling. You know what you need to do. How are you? How do you find client? How do you find that our clients Are okay with your schedule? You know, have you had any issue where it's like what? I've been trying to get a hold of you for an hour?
Speaker 1:No um.
Speaker 2:It's just me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know, I think, I think it's it's easy to think that your clients would not respect what you're doing or you taking care of yourself, um, you know, I don't know, but I, I I almost have found it that clients like the transparency and kind of the over communication, and so I have had, um, clients and maybe agents, um like Text me or call me or email me at the, at the gym, and if it's a call, I mean I've been able to.
Speaker 1:I guess it's for I guess really more specifically for my clients, I've been able to say, hey, I'm at the gym, but I'll be back at my computer in 45 minutes and they're like no worries, like they almost feel bad that they're bugging me. So that's kind of interesting, um, and so I really share just what I'm actually doing, because, because it's the truth, it's like you know and and and I share on social media you know when I'm at the gym and what I'm. You know I'm walking pepper or I'm lifting weights or you know stuff like that. That's part of my just who I am, and a lot of people Understand that. They're like what gym are you going to? Or or you know, nice job, you know, oh, it's so hard to get to the gym in the winter, like I've been having these conversations with people and no, nobody gets mad. I'm not doing eight hours in the gym, I'm no, I'm no, you know bodybuilder, and so it's not like oh, lauren is always at the gym.
Speaker 1:It's like no, you happen to grab me in the one hour that I ever get to the gym. Yeah, and they're usually kind of cool about it.
Speaker 2:So I would say we've worked with some really good people, yeah, and you know, and we all share, you know we we have a funny business. It's it is a business, but it is super personal. Yeah, you know, people follow us. They see us having fun on social media, yeah, and out and about and having a good time and and and then we're responsive to their needs and so I almost think that's a pretty good flex. Yeah, when your clients see how busy you are all the time, but you always take their, you always get back to them Always and it's like oh, thanks for calling me, you know, I didn't you know. Or oh, my god, I didn't think you'd answer. You know kind of stuff I know and that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:I think I was also.
Speaker 1:I was at the gym this morning and it was 9 am. This kind of body pump class was starting and I saw the lady setting it up in the big gym and by the time I came back down kind of around the gym area, it was 9 30 and it was like 40 people who were doing this body pump you know type exercise where they're all doing different kind of Floor exercises and like stages, like minute goes by, then the minute goes up and like the alarm goes off right up and they switch stages, like it was this really cool class. Yeah, I was like that is so many people who are around my age they're maybe around my age and a little bit older. You know, I didn't see too many young people, not like college kids I would say it's definitely working people and I was like what do you do all? Like what is your job? Because there's no way that's 40 realtors. Because, like when you work for yourself in your realtor, you can really go to classes anytime of the day. If you, if you really want to.
Speaker 1:But like rich who's on salary, he's not really supposed to be doing that like he's supposed to be. Yeah. Logged in take his lunch at like noon, you know, and like that's when he goes to the gym and that's when he eats.
Speaker 1:But this was 9 to 10 a 9 to 10, 9 am to 10 10 am Class, and so I think there is probably way more flexibility that people have than I realize, and so if I'm feeling guilty of being, you know, way from my computer when I totally am allowed to be there's, I think there's a lot of people who are allowed to do the same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so they're kind of like yeah, get it, you know, and so I don't know interesting tangent to go down. But I have, I have found that you know good, good responses in that situation. But I will say, if I schedule a workout for myself in the afternoon it never, ever happens, ever yeah.
Speaker 1:I Mean. I can tell you almost zero percent success rate on that. You know, I'll put it in my schedule. That's one thing that I do on Sundays is I put in my Google calendar my gym sessions, and I don't know why I keep doing it and I keep putting in the afternoon and it never happens. Because the day snowballs, for some reason it does, you know. It starts off really chill and then it just gets crazier and crazier and crazier and I just can't get get away, and so so what I've figured out, you know, in terms of work, life balance and like making sure I take care of myself, is I have to go To the gym first thing in the morning, otherwise it doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:No, that was. That was kind of. I talked about the treadmill this afternoon because there was probably three times where I just thought this isn't gonna happen today, yeah, and and I was able to pull it off and so I was kind of proud of that because you're right, if you know, if you don't get to it in the morning, you know pretty soon you've got a bunch of emails and phone calls building up. But hey, I know enough about us. Yeah, what about the people we love and love us back?
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:How do we, how do we not get so self-absorbed and being Real estate agents and working out and going to our appointments and find time for for the Friends and family?
Speaker 1:Yeah, not easy. Um, no, one thing that I do that I think is very successful because you know, rich rich gets off at five and he wants to hang out and he wants to talk and he, you know, worked all day. He wants my time. I'm really good at telling him, hey, I got to get this one thing done or hey, I just need one more hour. I think totally respects it. He's good, you can go hang out. But when we are hanging out, and typically when we're cooking and sit down for dinner and maybe some, you know, we kind of do some TV afterwards or whatever, or when we go on walks after work, I leave my phone somewhere else and it's amazing how many times I I think that's a scary thing to do. I always think I'm going to miss something really crazy, like a call that I like, just you know a new, a new client that I missed, and you know some because I didn't answer the phone.
Speaker 1:But every time I go back to my phone it's nothing important that I missed, but for nothing that couldn't. That needed Attention urgently it honest dad is not even important like it's stuff that I'm like that was a bogus email. That was a bogus email, but every time my phone goes off I have to go check it.
Speaker 1:Yeah review it and it takes me away from riches attention, or I guess his, yeah, my attention is away from him and that's that's the one thing that I I can do. I don't have any. I got nothing else.
Speaker 2:We're pretty lucky that we have spouses that Are supportive and understand.
Speaker 2:You know our work, you know mom said it a couple times where she's Run into, you know, she's had conversations with people who didn't think real estate agents were really good people. She's had conversations with people who didn't think real estate agents really worked that hard and she's like, oh my god, God is just, you know, todd Lorner, just non-stop, you know, and so that was really good. Um, I had a life-changing moment as a dad and and became mindful of the importance to spend time with my kids early on, and, and, fortunately, your older brother, who was very vocal in his needs and demands. We were having dinner and, and it was the four of us know, julia at the time. Yet and, hmm, and I was telling mom that my boss asked me to play golf on Saturdays and she says, oh, that'll be fun. I said hold on.
Speaker 1:So this was like 30 something years ago when Julia wasn't born. Yes, Okay, just making sure people understand that, because they might not know that we had. I have a younger sister, older brother. Yeah, okay, gotcha, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's 30 years ago, when, when, when my son was maybe five Okay, you know, and, and and you were maybe three ish, okay, you know, and maybe even earlier than that, but but yeah, so, so you guys were little and I was saying that, hey, I think I'm gonna play golf tomorrow. My boss asked me to go golfing at this nice, you know golf course and and I was pretty excited about it, and Alex was quiet for a little bit and then he goes how long does it take to play golf? And I said, oh, it's probably about, you know, five hours, because we were gonna play like 18 holes and then drive somewhere, so it'd be six, and then it turned into beers and conversation and so, and then he was quiet for a little bit and he goes does your boss know you play with me on Saturdays? It was like, you know, he probably doesn't really, you know. Oh, you know, he didn't really, you know. Think about, you know, I was with my boss Monday through Friday, and now I'm gonna spend Saturday with my boss.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, I'm crying, I know it.
Speaker 2:And so I definitely did not play golf and I was so mindful from that point about my work life balance of, hey, I was getting up in the morning and you know, commuting to work and working really hard and getting home at night and and I loved every minute I Could spend with my kids. But, yeah, you know, if I was doing something on the weekends, you guys were, it was we usually with you or you're come along with me.
Speaker 2:You know, so then it just you know I was really mindful of that, and so I was so thankful to have a Kid Early on that spoke up you know and called me out, yeah, and pointed out you know that you need to balance your life with, you, need to balance your time with me, and so, yeah, so, anyhow, don't ever take that for granted, because you, you know somebody who has a loved one that may just let them have a long leash and work when we work and and get Get, allow them to be put on the back burner. You know they're not happy about it, they're just they don't communicate it well.
Speaker 1:What do you think about? You know, because I'm gonna be a mom at some point and I'm gonna have, you know, weekend showings and weekend open houses and appointments and stuff. What do you? What's your advice for? You know, anybody who's listening, who has kids and is struggling. Yeah, you know to like they have to work on the weekends but they want to spend time with their kids because their kids are probably in School, maybe Monday through Friday. So it's like, yeah, there's not much. I mean, you know a realtor might not have to work on Monday, but their kid has to go to school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's easy. My advice is to do as many weekend open houses as you can and let grandpa have time with you. Fit from soft.
Speaker 1:This is gonna be a disaster, though at some point gonna be like hey, dad, you, you need to work. You know I need you to work.
Speaker 2:I can't do all the work and you get to just watch the kid, the grandkids, all day, but you know think of our partnership and when the time comes I know you know how lucky are we that we can coordinate, you know yeah but what do you?
Speaker 1:think about people who aren't on team. That's what I'm trying to you know.
Speaker 2:I know I was hard, I was being silly. It would be hard, you know you would want to. You know if you're you would want to. You know one day on the weekend, one day off.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Have some time, you know, during the week, where it's it's your time and you know if you've got a partner you know or a spouse that you know they kind of understand, hey, maybe, maybe Saturday is their day, yeah, and because mom and I had that when she was In accounting she had to work on Saturdays during tax season, I know, and so I had you guys, all them myself, and then when it was Sunday, you know, I totally let her, you know, do what you won't, you know she let her spend time with you, and so you know I would knock out some laundry and do a few things, and so you know she, she could maximize her time because she's working six days a week, and so I think you really gotta juggle that, yeah, I remember mom said when she was, you know, in accounting and stuff she was busy on Saturdays, just like a realtor would be she said that she'd go pick us up from daycare, you know, monday through Friday, or preschool or whatever it was.
Speaker 1:And she said there was a few moms who were like who said, oh, I just got my grocery shopping done. There's no way I could get grocery shopping with my kids. I always go there first and I pick up my kids. And my mom was like she was like I could not bear, you know, to stay away from you guys that long. I would count down the minutes, like, yeah, and we would all go to the grocery store together. There's no way I was gonna just, you know, go get that errand done without you. And so you know, I think there's a lot that can be done with kids. You know I don't open houses are probably hard with the kids, for sure.
Speaker 1:But yeah you know, if you have the right types of clients. I mean, sometimes you can bring them for showings and I don't know. There's a lot of errands that you can Only run with the kiddos.
Speaker 2:No, that's true. You know. We definitely use daycare for while we were working only. Yeah and if we had stuff to do, you know we, you know we would just take you along with us, and so it's gotta be difficult.
Speaker 1:We'll have to check back in in a few years when I have kids. I'm Trying to balance everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know that'd be a great podcast is to just let you talk about. You know life as a mom and you know being a real estate agent. I mean many, many parents have been realtors and raised great kids and so Absolutely you know it's, there's, there's a way to do it.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people that we know who. You know they're. Their parents have been in real estate forever and now they're the kids are joining them, you know, and they're like my mom doing open houses. I'd go help set the signs out and blow up the balloons and you know I remember going to showings on Saturday.
Speaker 1:Yeah and and so they saw it and it didn't scare them. You know they're, they're doing it now, and so that's. I think that's a really powerful thing. It's like if, if it was so bad, there would be no kids joining their parents.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so true, so anything else touch on.
Speaker 2:for work life balance, I have some rules you know, yeah, I think I think what you know, what rules do you have? Because we've kind of touched on you know health and you know your personal life and kids and you know there's bills and there's. You know cars and there's. You know things you got to take care of and you know carbon timeout for all that stuff is important. It's just all about prioritization. But you know, to prioritize correctly, you got to have some kind of rules to follow and it's like you know, hey, what's what's important, what can you sacrifice and what, what's some of the rules you have?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you and I kind of created these based on trial and error. The one that we have that we really really, really try to stick to is not having any Like client-facing appointments before noon.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Just because you know, most of the time, if you just say I'm unavailable, well, okay, so we do that because we want to be able to fit in our time to take care of ourselves, get to our emails, get to, you know, touching base with clients, sticking to our agenda. It is so hard to do that when your first appointments at 8 am or 9 am and then you get back and you're already like behind. That's how I feel and so we've. We've kind of made it the rule like let's try to you know.
Speaker 1:As best as we can, unless our client is like I cannot meet until, or I can only meet in the morning, that's, that's the only option. Most of the time they can meet later in the afternoon, and so we try to do that, just to make sure that we always have a little bit of consistency and time to kind of get ourselves in the right mindset and kind of set ourselves up for success that day and then another one that I that we just experienced this the last two weekends. We've had two open houses each Saturday and Sunday, or one each day.
Speaker 1:And it was a lot. You know it was yeah right in the middle of the day, Rich, you know, asked I mean we got invited to do things and I couldn't and Rich had to go by himself, and that's fine, but like that's a bummer, but it also is just. It's just a lot, you know, it's a lot to be on for seven days a week and so we just talked we just talked this weekend about.
Speaker 1:hey, let's just do all of it in one day, Like I'd rather do, a four hour open house than two hours Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree it would be. It would be good to have that day where you get up and get ready and put on you know nice clothes and, yeah, have all your signs in your car and everything all packed and your work ready to go and just to knock that out in one day if you can. Yeah it's hard to.
Speaker 1:It's hard to yeah be, I don't know. Juggle that two days in a row, where, where? If you push it all into one day, you know, if you have multiple showings, if you have open house, do it all in one day because you're already dressed, you're already you know. The saying is like an object in motion stays in motion, object at rest, stays at rest. And those rest days I love. I love a Sunday morning. I wake up with my coffee, I am in my sweats, I read my book, rich makes me pancakes and I don't have to go to work. You know I don't have to go to an open house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but both.
Speaker 1:I need more of that I know I need yeah.
Speaker 2:Because, then again really busy.
Speaker 1:Well, but then again, if you don't have that, it goes to I mean, it's pushed to Monday. Today I felt very, like you know, groggy because of that and I just think that's because I didn't get to have my Sunday, my.
Speaker 2:Sunday pancakes. I know, yeah, I was feeling that too. I was thinking to today's, my day. I had a whole bunch of personal stuff to do and, you know, my day went a little haywire. But but yeah, you feel that loss when you don't have that time to recharge a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, or you know it's time to shift work to some some personal stuff, and so you know, and then there's always going to be, you know, even though you carved out that time, on the weekends there might be a client you have to talk to or email or a phone call you have to make you know to set yourself up for a good start on Monday. Yeah, but you know it's, that's a little different than just having, you know, a chunk of your day tied up doing something and to where you just have to walk over to your computer at home, maybe fire something off, and then you're, you're back to your leisurely Sunday. So, yeah, or you can do it from your phone. So, yeah, I agree, it's good to block out a day like that.
Speaker 1:Mm. Hmm, yeah, the other one I already mentioned. It was just making sure that you respond to the really important emails.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Lenders, other agents, appraisers, inspectors, whatever during business hours, but everything else, if it's just not important, you know, let it be for the next day. You know, let it don't. You don't need to be sending 3am emails, dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So but we have a really good hot tip. We both kind of have one yes, Mine. So what I like to do is I to to again, you know, have some balance. I use my calendar, my Google calendar, to block off balance. So that means I'm putting in my gym time, I put in date night, even if I don't know what date night is. I put in like a Tuesday night where it's like I just I just know that this time is specific for me and my husband. And then also in the mornings, you know, we block off kind of our morning chunks so that nothing gets accidentally scheduled. Yeah, Before noon, so yeah, and then yours, yours a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do this, you know I definitely block time out. You know I'm a little more old school where I've got a daytime or a planner and it lays out the whole day and I punch in where things are. But one thing I do is I set alarms on my phone that to shift gears.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, because there's times where I'll just get caught up and doing something and it's like all right. You know I need to get on the treadmill or shower by a certain time, or, you know, take care of something personally, you know, throw in a load of laundry, whatever it is, but I like throwing an alarm on there, it's. I only do it when I'm at home because I have not to tell if I was sitting next to you at work. Yeah, but you know, if I'm at home, it's like all right. How am I going to get all this stuff done today? And the thing is not to linger, you know, on something too long, or or I've got to move it to another day, and so the alarm helps snap me out of maybe getting distracted by something and get back on task.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just saw this study or research maybe that they said people are most productive if they work for 45 minutes straight and then they take a 10 minute break or something like that, or maybe it's a 15 minute break, but it's like at past 45 minutes you're you mentally just start to slow down and you're maybe not as sharp and you're maybe getting distracted. And so setting a 45 minute timer is a way that people are getting really effective and I think I'm going to start trying that. I just saw it this weekend and I'm looking to be a little bit more focused and you know, because there's times where I'll sit here for two hours and then I look and I'm like, oh my gosh, I did not know that time went. But you know, did I really get? Could I have gotten that that work done faster and then given myself more free time later in the day for work life balance If I was more effective? My time, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I feel that you know, when I'm spending too much time on something, it's like, oh my gosh, I need to step away.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And do something else and then come back with a frisk set of eyes to knock this out, you know, because I'm just struggling here. Or you know, like, like I said, sometimes I linger on something and it's like, all right, I'm not being productive and so, yeah, alarm, snap me out of it.
Speaker 1:Well, 45 minute cycle, I'm going to try it. All right we're back, but yeah, that's it for work life balance. I think we covered some good stuff and it's always a challenge. But, yeah, yeah, it's all important, so take care of yourself and cheers, cheers.