Austin Property Talk

Our Snow Day in 2 Minutes (2/23)

I'm the first one to roll my eyes at the people in Austin that get all hyped up about a potential "snow day,"  school and work closures.  There is always a big build up for the Winter Weather Watch and it rarely, if ever materializes. In fact, I saw on the news today that there have only been 15 measurable snow accumulations in Austin Texas since 1898.  That's eighteen, not nineteen.  So you can see how rare it is for us to have any significant snowfall.  Today, surprisingly, was one of those days.  Ironically, this comes right on the heels of a Sunday when the temperatures reached almost 80 degrees. Just goes to show you how fickle the Austin climate can be sometimes.  In any event, I had to chronicle our "Snow Day."  Enjoy my video of Our Snow Day in 2 Minutes.

Ping Pong

I’m wondering if you can relate to this. . . .

Despite what I would consider a better than normal aptitude for focus and getting things done, I have developed a bad habit that I need to break. 

I have a tendency to get about 95% done with something (a task or project) and then shut it down for the time being, wrap it up, save it and leave the last 5% to be completed at a later time or date. 

Having self-diagnosed, I believe there are a couple of reasons I do that. First off, I’ve usually been working on that particular thing for quite a while and I’m ready to just be done with it.  Second, I succumb to a false sense of next task importance.  I perceive starting the next task to be more important than seeing the current one to the point of completion.  Third, there is a natural human inclination to actually completing anything creative or worthwhile.  If you think otherwise, you are fooling yourself.

So what happens?  I/we get about 90-95% done and leave the rest for later.  Later either turns into  ‘Never’ or at best a perpetual nagging reminder that that task is still incomplete and an inability to fully engage in the next one.  This is a nasty habit that I need to break. 

I always joke with my wife telling her that she allows what I would consider to be insignificant things weigh on her consciousness.  For instance, the fact that she has a bag full of plastic bags in the backseat of her car that need to be dropped off at the grocery store for recycling bothers her to no end.  Or she has a return that she’s been meaning to make for weeks and the timing is never right.

I tell her that I imagine these little things as a bunch of ping pong balls bouncing around in her head.  Though I tease, I do understand (my cover is blown).  I play that game too on a different level. 

Sadly, when we allow ourselves to get 90-95% of the way through something and rationalize a reason to finish it later, we just keep adding more and more ping pong balls into the mix.  This brings more chaos and frustration.  We cheat ourselves of the satisfaction and clarity that comes from the actual completion of a project or a task.

So as I sit here right now and realize that I’m about to close up and save a project of mine about 97% complete and leave it for “later,” I’m going to open that document up and finish it because I know that is one less ping pong ball bouncing around in my head for the rest of the day or week.

Can you relate?

Mobile Work Environments

I posed the question on Facebook yesterday afternoon:

For those of you who aren't stuck in an office all day long, where is your favorite place to work, to be creative, to be productive?

I posted that question from my Blackberry while I was working at Starbucks and waiting for an appointment.  I was a bit surprised at the volume of responses that I received.  It was pretty cool.  The power of social networks - ask and you shall receive. You can see those answers (click here).  If we aren't yet friends on facebook - add me.

I am fortunate that more than half of the work that I do can be done from a remote place or what I like to call "mobile work environments."  Some of my favorite places to go are coffee houses, the library, hotel lobbies, the gym and sometimes picnic tables outdoors on a nice day.  For some reason I find that when I take myself out of my normal circumstances and surroundings that the ideas and creativity just starts to flow.  Ideas come like drinking out of a fire hose. 

Some of the best ideas that I have had recently that I feel are going to have profound effects on my business and my life have been captured while waiting to meet business partners at various Starbucks for some reason.  Its strange, maybe its the energy of the place or the coffee aroma but I get into deeper levels of thinking and understanding.

I fully understand why novelists have to go to remote or varying locations when its time to sit down and write or finish a book.  You eliminate the normal distractions and free yourself up to be creative.  (well I don't know about Starbucks - that place can get pretty loud) but it works for me.  

What works for you? 

I thought it would be fun to look back at the end of the year and at a chronological summary of what went on during each month while it actually happened.  Similar to keeping a detailed event journal, but a lot less effort. 

I've decided that I will save what I think are the most relevant Facebook and Twitter status updates and post them in a single post at the end of each month.  Its kind of the Cliff's notes version of the month from start to finish.  Eventually it will become the electronic summary of the year as a whole.  This should be fun. 

So here we go with the January edition - a little late because I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do with it.  Click on the social media icons on the left hand side of this site to become part of my networks. - Ryan

The Chinese Bamboo Tree

This is not a story of mine.  It may not even be attributed to the correct author here, I don't know for sure.  I do know this.  I have read this story a handful of times and each time I read it, I am struck by the simplicity of it but also the essential lesson to be learned.  Accordingly, this is the time of the year where most people have either abandoned their resolutions or promises for the New Year or are struggling to sustain them (myself included).  What this story and the greater principles of life tell us is that like the Chinese Bamboo tree, growth is more a by product of purpose than it is of instant gratification.  On a related note, I've started a personal Blog that you can read at www.RyanFrance.com (on passion, on purpose, on becoming the best version of yourself and my journey to do the same).  Check it out.

The Chinese Bamboo Tree  (By Charlie Dexter)

Zig Ziglar, the famous motivational speaker, once told the story of the Chinese Bamboo Tree. It seems that this tree when planted, watered, and nurtured for an entire growing season doesn't outwardly grow as much as an inch.

Then, after the second growing season, a season in which the farmer takes extra care to water, fertilize and care for the bamboo tree, the tree still hasn't sprouted. So it goes as the sun rises and sets for four solid years. The farmer and his wife have nothing tangible to show for all of their labor trying to grow the tree.

Then, along comes year five. In the fifth year that Chinese bamboo tree seed finally sprouts and the bamboo tree grows up to eighty feet in just one growing season! Or so it seems….

Did the little tree lie dormant for four years only to grow exponentially in the fifth? Or, was the little tree growing underground, developing a root system strong enough to support its potential for  outward growth in the fifth year and beyond?

The answer is, of course, obvious. Had the tree not developed a strong unseen foundation

it could not have sustained its life as it grew. Had the Chinese bamboo farmer dug up his little seed every year to see if it was growing, he would have stunted the tree's growth as surely as a caterpillar is doomed to a life on the ground if it is freed from its struggle inside a cocoon prematurely.The struggle in the cocoon is what gives the future butterfly the wing power to fly.

We live in a quick-fix society. We get frustrated if we have to wait more than 2 minutes for service or a stop light to change. We want instant solutions to every complex problem and every fractured relationship. In short - we want it all now!

Maybe its time to reflect on an old, old poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that is as true today as it was when he wrote it over 100 years ago:

"The heights by great men reached and kept 

Were not attained by sudden flight, 

But they, while their companions slept, 

Toiled ever upward through the night."