7 Things Highly Productive People Do

7 Things Highly Productive People Do

By Ilya Pozin
@ilyaNeverSleeps
Dec 13, 2011

You have more important things to focus on than, um, focusing. Get back on track with these tips.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You probably don’t want to admit it but you love distractions. In fact, just like monkeys, you get a shot of dopamine every time something pulls you in another direction. Why do you think you check your email so much?

Want to be more productive and get your focus back? There are no secret tricks here… do one thing at a time. Stop multitasking—it’s just another form of distraction.

Easier said than done, I know.

Recently I sat down with Tony Wong, a project management blackbelt whose client list includes Toyota, Honda, and Disney, to name a few. He’s an expert in keeping people on task, so I thought he’d be a good person to ask.

Here are his tips for staying productive:
Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks. Writing “launch company website” at the top of your to-do list is a sure way to make sure you never get it done. Break down the work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less: Sketch a wireframe, outline an introduction for the homepage video, etc. That’s how you set goals and actually succeed in crossing them off your list.

Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women).

Be militant about eliminating distractions. Lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging. In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.

Schedule your email. Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to use your email. Checking your email constantly throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.

Use the phone. Email isn’t meant for conversations. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead.

Work on your own agenda. Don’t let something else set your day. Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out. You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day.

Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals. Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours.

Homeownership: Still the American Dream

By The KCM Crew on Aug. 16th, 2011
in For Buyers, For Sellers

Friday August 19, Fannie Mae released their National Housing Survey for the second quarter of 2011. They survey the American public on a multitude of questions concerning today's housing market. Each quarter, we like to pull out some of the findings we deem most interesting. Here they are the the most recent report:

To see the rest of the article Click here

5 Real Estate Headlines You’ll See in the Next Six Months

By The KCM CREW on July 6, 2011

In For Buyers, For Sellers, Foreclosures, Pricing

Making predictions can be the 'kiss-of-death' for a blog. Even if we get four out of five correct (80%), there are those in the industry who will kill us on the one we got wrong. We believe and take into consideration how the housing market may change.

For this reason, we are willing to take on the possible wrath of our conterparts by sticking out our necks and predicting these will be the major real estate news stories from now until the end of the year.

To see the rest of the article Click here

First California Mortgage Company Wholesale Division Deepens Relationships

Petaluma, CA, June 04, 2011 --(PR.com)-- First California Mortgage (First Cal) is more committed than ever to the Wholesale business channel and has made key moves to deepen its relationship with the best performing Business Partners. Through the use of decision analytics First Cal has been able to identify approximately 240 key brokers (versus 1,200 in past years) to partner with going forward. First Cal is committed to the success of their exclusive list of brokers and to offering this group unprecedented customer service, tools and marketing support.

To best serve these business partners a new role has been created at First Cal called the Strategic Account Manager or SAM; these experienced loan executives will work with the top tier broker clients and will be an in-house liaison for those partners. Top tier business partners are being offered exclusive benefits and services including; access to capital markets, additional marketing support and training and access to special loan programs. For example First Cal is rolling out its FHA flip program only to its top tier broker partners.

Company President Chris Hart said, “The need to set ourselves apart became apparent over the past 120 days. To accomplish this, we have aligned with a select group of brokers.” He continued to say, “We have the unique ability to help this group of brokers and their Loan Originators succeed in this tough market environment through strategic initiatives that we can offer. We can go to bat for them through special programs and special pricing.”

To continue to support the very active wholesale division First Cal plans to actively recruit additional conventional and government underwriters for Northern California and Southern California as well as 203K underwriting specialists.

About First Cal

Throughout its nearly 30-year history, First Cal and its affiliates have funded more than $200 billion in residential loans across the U.S. Today, First Cal is an approved FNMA Seller/Servicer, an approved HomePath® Lender, and is licensed to lend in 10 states: including Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

First Cal specializes in high quality, fully documented conforming, jumbo, FHA and VA loans. It is a Fannie Mae direct lender, a HUD Non-Supervised Title II Full Eagle Lender and an approved national correspondent for most of the largest U.S. banks. The company maintains its headquarters in Petaluma, Calif., and is privately owned. You can find it online at http://www.firstcal.net/.
###
http://www.pr.com/press-release/329084

First Cal MGIC and Advanced Tax Analysis a Success!

We would like to thank all that came out and spent their time at our MGIC and Advanced Tax Analysis event this morning. The turnout was phenomenal and we enjoyed having you all with us. Let us know what you thought of it!

First Cal Supports the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

Recently First Cal continued its philanthropy efforts and showed its support of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation through sponsorship of a Teeter Totter for A Cure event. This event was held by the Phi Delta Theta fraternity at Sonoma State where three First Cal employees are students. This event had students teeter tottering for 72 hours to raise money for this great cause.

According to the Phi Delta Theta website, "to a Phi Delt, community service and philanthropy is an essential part of living up to the ideals of the Fraternity. Each chapter has the opportunity to create their own events that impact their community. Beyond chapter projects, individual members can also choose to work with a national organization while others choose to take on local projects. Wherever you go, you will find Phi Delta Theta chapters doing something of value on their campus and in their community."

First Cal strongly believes that "Together we prosper®" which is the company tagline and sponsorship of this event was another way to show that belief in our community.

The mission of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, a nonprofit donor-supported organization, is to assure the development of the means to cure and control cystic fibrosis and to improve the quality of life for those with the disease.

The Foundation is the leading organization in the United States devoted to cystic fibrosis. It funds and accredits more than 115 CF care centers, 95 adult care programs and 50 affiliate programs, and more than 75 chapters and branch offices nationwide.

You can get more information about the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation at http://www.cff.org/

2011: Right Time to Buy a House?

By: Kalyan Nandy
March 01, 2011

Is 2011 a good year to buy a house if the pocket permits? Declining home prices and a low interest rate environment suggest that the time is just perfect. Also, many of economists expect housing prices to bottom in 2011.

So, if buyers have a secure job and the confidence to meet stricter lender requirements, it would probably be a wise decision to proceed.

To read the rest of the article click here.