I hope you find yourself with the time to spend this holiday with family and friends.  For those of you looking to fry your bird, I recommend a safety video (here) to avoid a trip to the walk-in clinic. Random fun fact; turkeys can run at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour and fly as fast as 55 miles per hour.  Who would have known?

I talk to many commercial appraisers throughout the U.S. Some appraisers are taking the entire week off while others plan to hunker down, cranking out appraisals for most of the holiday. I wondered why the disparity.  

My MAI wife and I recently taught an eight hour commercial appraisal productivity seminar. In this seminar we asked attendees, "why is productivity important and what motivates you"?  For some it was purely monetary, but for the majority it was time.  Specifically, the ability to better "control" their appraisal workflow, reduce the superfluous parts of their report and improve their time management.

I sensed "word processing fatigue" with the copy and paste methodology many of us are stuck in which adds to late nights and weekend work. Best practice tips that resonated with some folks included dictating reports with Dragon Naturally Speaking, having 3 to 4 monitors, SSD hard drives and only opening up Outlook at the end of the day (to avoid others dictating your workday priority). The E-myth systemization also caught the eye of several, as did redefining the owner and appraiser roles.

For some, working over Thanksgiving holiday may be viewed as a necessary activity to get the work out the door. However, I suspect it has more to do with not wanting to change. I believe there are appraisers in every market that have monster high production, a good-quality appraisal product and who will NOT be working this holiday. Shouldn't that be you? Typically, I find these folks to be serious about their fun time as much as their work time and plan accordingly. They know the secret of time management is your daily routine wrapped in a self-discipline attitude.
 
Generally speaking, your purpose dictates how you spend your time...whether it's efficiently or not; it's a choice. I find myself constantly looking for ways to improve my appraisal process. Once I drank the Kool-Aid of efficiency I can never go back to the "old ways." I'm hungry for better ways to create my appraisal product. My goal as an appraiser is both monetary and time because if you have one or the other and not both, what's the point?

After Thanksgiving will you sit at your desk and go back to autopilot mode, operating exactly the same as before? If you are serious about increasing your hourly wage AND better managing your time for the next holiday (or a long vacation - remember those?), you probably have to implement some change. I suggest you start small but make it your daily routine. Be hungry for new information and ways to improve. Read/watch progressive business and best practices from sources outside of our industry such as Fast Company, Entrepreneur or Ted Talks. It will get you motivated and provide tips that can foster innovation and spur you to action.

Don't expect improvement without some change on your part.  Don't hope that a wishbone will make you a better appraiser or more importantly, a better businessperson. As we sit down with others, we mainly care about and are thankful for our family but also recognize the importance of our appraisal career.