We all have been there. We are pressed for time, the pressure is on, and the web page or application is taking forever to load.
As we watch the clock tick and our internal thermostats approach the red zone, we chant: “come on, come on, come on” or “not now, not now, not now!”
The simple truth is this: Despite our techno-wizardry and highest tech gadgets we are spending more and more time every day of our lives waiting.
I can’t help but wonder how much time is lost in a day, a week, a month or even a year. And as data transfer speeds get faster and faster, our dependency gets more and more entrenched.
I know a lot of agents that are hiring an assistant to do their waiting for them. It’s an adequate albeit expensive solution to an ever growing problem.
Being the old-fashioned guy that I am, I am still doing my own waiting. But to tell you the truth, I am not very good at it.
So I will continue to chant: “hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!”
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What we do, how we do it changes. Or should to be as efficient as possible but still make buyers, sellers think they are the only ones you work with full time. Too much time, overkill in one deal means you can not juggle other ones. Think bird's nest, a bigger one, with lots of open mouths...except you don't have to regurgitate what you feed them! Juggle lots of deals. Want something done, give it to a busy person. They are the most efficient. No time to waste.
Patience is something I have learned better over the past copule of years with all these short sales! Still, I remember the irritation when another agent responded to my question with "Patience, grasshopper!"
I am right there with you....and it is PAINFUL. I really wonder the $Billions$ of dollars lost and wasted waiting for the computer to move to the page, etc.
Thank you
I'm not good at the "hurry up and wait" game Richard.................patience isn't my strong suit when it comes to this type of thing.
I have no patience for waiting - I have to do something else. I have quick games that I play online while slow pages are loading. It drives me nuts.
Andy...
That's quite profound. I think that you should base a whole post on that! THX
Gary...
I think that would have either irritated me or made me laugh out loud! Thanks so much.
Scott...
Maybe some researcher somewhere is studying this. I really would like to know. Thanks.
Roger...
Nor mine, my friend. Nor mine. Thanks.
Margaret...
It is frustrating, that's for sure. Thanks for jumping in.
I too am not good at waiting. For me there are rules for waiting. If a client is over 15 minutes late and hasn't called me ( we all have cells now) then I move on.
Patience is not one of my virtues. I bite my tongue and try to either sit still or keep busy when waiting. I need to work on that area of my being.
I am like you....doing it all solo, no assistant...admittedly, I am very impatient and I HATE waiting!
Hi Richard - The best solution, and maybe the hardest, to waiting is to multi-task. I've always got lots of little details that need attending to, and I try to have access to them when I'm in waiting situations - at least I can be a bit productive while I'm getting frustrated.
Hi Richard,
I have an amazing assistent that I cannot do without!!! She does a lot for me, one being....the waiting!!!
Someone just last night told me "Idle hands make the devils work". If I'm waiting for something, I try, as well as I can, to focus on other things that need to be done. We're always talking about having too much to do and not enough time. My advice to folks - stop waiting and engage.
Oh yes, I hate waiting - whether it's on the internet or waiting on line. I now try to figure out other things to do at same time so either less waiting or use that time better (e.g. I used use ankle weights and march in place while in line or waiting for elevator. then I felt like I wasn't wasting time and was losing weight. I need to start doing that again - both for my sanity and to lose weight.
The more i do, the more waiting for something filters into the daily routine. I hate the wait but i have not found anyway around the process. No assistant for me. I wait for me and me alone.
My biggest pet peeve...wasting time. Sitting and waiting is such a waste in my book!
Maybe I would get my future assistent to drive my rolling office on wheels (custom 2017 Mercedes Sprinter), while I'm busy in the office, since I dislike waiting on red lights.
Hey Richard,
Some waiting can't be avoided. I'm waiting now on answers from two offers submitted on Monday from two different banks. What could be so challenging about approving full price offers??? Anyways it's all about multi tasking and having a plan B while the clock ticks. Best of success to you this year!
Good morning Richard,
Patience is a virtue. I feel your pain but that is when the ability to multi-task comes in :). Juggling clients and all that is to be done for each one isn't easy but as Andrew says..give it to a busy person and it will get done!! Jordon is right..always have Plan B ready to implement!
It's not a new phenomenon - we just have a bunch of new technologies now for which everyone expects instant gratification or results. The old saying still applies: "a watched pot never boils".
I try to multi task which I hear is not the best way to go about it either.
The iPad solves this problem big time. I scoot over to it while anything is being loaded etc. on the laptop and keep on rolling.
Good morning Richard,
Waiting can try one's patience to the limit. I have two touch screen systems, independent of one another on my very large desk so I am usually "up and running"...and it can still be frustrating with screen freezes, "pear shaped", etc...
Hi Richard - Fortunately, there are ways of getting some of your time back. Google has engineers whose job it is to figure out how to get your search results back to you faster and to make their other products work faster. They are constantly looking for new ways to get search results many milliseconds faster to you.
During the times I have wait on the phone or in line somewhere I try and work on the phone with texts or emails, try to get te most production out of a day as I can
Richard, everyone seems to be in a hurry except when we need some information.
Hi Richard. As much as I love technology and all the cool gadgets, sometimes I think we become slaves to them. Great post and congrats on another feature.
Richard...AMEN and I actually tried it with and without an assistant however, I gave up and went back to having an assistant do my waiting!
One would think technology would have solved the waiting problem. Unfortunately, it seems I'm waiting more now than I did during the days of the rotary phone.
I wish I had more time. I generally multitask so there is no downtime. If I see an available minute tapping its fingernails on the desk, I smash it with a hammer.
I get a new laptop every two years, simply to reduce the amount of waiting I do. "Time is money" has never been so apparent when I'm trying to lock a loan for a Client and I know that the Market is moving!
I love waiting at my kids school to pick him up.
The faster things get, the faster we seem to want and expect them. When the internet is down you really come to terms with our dependency on it. While I try to multi-task as much as possible during "wait times", wanting to do what you want to do right then is an over-riding frustration for sure.
some things I do mind waiting for. (like at the doctor and it's 45 minutes PAST my appointment time). But for real estate... not so much. Lots of things to keep me busy while I wait.
Richard: I agree with you 110%. One of the few things we have control over is how we spend our time. Hopefully others appreciate this. Thanks for the post!
Richard, I work from my home office. I have been having problems with my internet. I thought it was the wireless router so I replaced it. It worked for about 2 weeks and now I'm experiencing intermittant service. It can be frustrating and a difficult way to run a business.
If only we could accumulate all the chopped up wait time into one contiguous block of time and use it to at least take a solid nap.
Sometimes, just having to wait a NY minute, feels like an eternity.
Good post, thanks for sharing it.
I'm with Tammy on this one. Waiting in a (COLD) doctor's office is about the last thing in the world I enjoy doing. I can literally feel the dollars slipping out of my cold fingertips and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. At least with real estate I can generally occupy my time with another task at hand.
Moving from Windows to Apple decreased my waiting enormously. I try to find ways Richard within my control to stop all the waiting. Sometimes in life in certain areas like gardening, waiting is a good thing.
Richard -- I finally got so tired of waiting for my computer to respond and display some of these heavy graphic and widget loaded pages I bought a new one. Still setting it up but it is screaming fast in all my testing. So I hope to have some extra time to do some things that have been on the back burner. I'm tired of wasting time.....waiting....
Sometimes, even when we're at our most busiest, we're still waiting. Waiting for lunch, waiting for a response to an offer. Technology can sometimes just fill in the gaps.
No doubt there is a lot of time spent waiting. I don't really mind it much unless I have a busy schedule. But I think in our techno-gadget world, we experience a double edged sword. Entertainment is provided, but it has also taught us to be multi-tasking, and incapable of simply sitting idle while blissing out:-)
Richard - I know that feeling. I always try to have something else at hand for that inevitable waiting period.
I was thinking of the hours we spent waiting back when Active Rain was misbehaivin' !
Hi Richard, I used to tap my foot and get frustrated waiting. Now with mp3 players, I load the novels I love to read on them and just listen to a story. The time goes by fast and sometimes I'm not ready to do what I was waiting for because of a good part in the book. You can load anything on them and now with Google ebooks you can have them anywhere, even on the phone. Waiting is a fact of life, might as well enjoy it.
It's the nature of the beast. We can't prevent waiting but we can control wasting time. If you have to wait for a contract then spend some time making sales calls or updating your listings. Being productive is better than twiddling your thumbs.