• Renovations,
• Taxing Dilemas,
• Travel,
• Calgary Market, and;
• Famililar Expansion

As always, the PDF link is the best way to read this, so please download the PDF and take a quick peek at what we are up to as of late.

Best wishes to everyone this spring. [link to PDF file]

And yes, we’ve been a little slow this spring and missed our February and March newsletters.

Highlights include:

• Procrastination Combat Strategies
• Holidays
• The Market in Calgary

Printable PDF Link.

[Load the PDF - It looks much better than this quick edit ]

Mañana…

As we are looking at purchasing our next property I find that I get stuck in analysis paralysis – which really points directly to procrastination; my greatest obstacle. I can find myself stuck for days, cleaning my desk and finding much more important things to do. Additionally, as I had mentioned in the CREN article written by Rusti Lehay, there is always stress involved in writing the offer – so I get lost long before I get to the point with “much more important” things to do.

The best way to combat this is to simply get out there and ‘do it’. I know it sounds simplistic, but breaking the paralysis-spell and making action the new habit is the first critical step to getting beyond the “Mañana-mindset”.

I have written here about procrastination previously but here are some of the things that I am now using to work more efficiently.

Using a Timer

I have been finding that when I have a task before me I set a timer with a commitment that I will work only on that project until the timer goes off and only then am I going to take a break.

Set Small, Realistic Goals

In the morning I begin with my tasks that I want to complete by the end of the day or the end of the week and write them down. Even in the act of writing this and essentially “telling on myself” I have gotten more productive. Yesterday, after writing the above, I went out and viewed 5 properties and spoke to around the same number of agents.

Last but not least do not forget the most important:

Celebrate

That might be a nice glass of wine by the fireplace, an hour reading your favorite book or magazine or even a movie out. As long as you know that this is your celebratory reward for completion, no matter how small the task, if it was a tough one for you – celebrate.

I would love to hear how you combat procrastination, please send me your tried and true suggestions if you are willing to share them.

Christmas and New Year

We were lucky to have a very full house this Christmas with both my family and Alan’s attending. In what we had previously considered a spacious place, we somehow managed to feed, sit and entertain 15 people. There was more than enough food to go around and not too many left overs to haunt us for the rest of the week.

Given the number of people we choose to do a Christmas present draw this year. Everyone brought a gift of a similar dollar value and wrapped it. We put them in the centre of the room and drew names to see who would pick from the wrapped presents first. Then the next person drawn had the choice of choosing a wrapped gift or ‘stealing’ the gift from anyone who had an unwrapped one. If the choice was to ‘steal’ then the victim would then have the same choice… and so on. It was great fun. It started out very benignly and then we watched our family become a band of thieves.

It was with sadness that we watched most of our guests depart the next day. We had some stay for a few days and then head home. Alan and I then had a couple of quiet days at home before New Year’s evening. Which continued along the same lines, quietly and peacefully we rang in the new year together.

We hope that everyone had an enjoyable Break and New Year.

We’d love to hear how you deal with large families and the holiday season, whatever you celebrate – logistics transcend all.

Real Estate Market is Wild

I have been looking at houses and condos in the past couple of weeks and have witnessed the frenzy first hand. Realtors are taking holidays in the middle of a melee because they are desperate for a break. Listings that show well are hitting the market one day and have 30 viewings and 3 or more offers by the evening, most offers end up being over list price. I have refused to look at a listing that is already in a bidding war and I have been asked “How do you expect to find something?”. I will simply keep looking. There are deals out there, I won’t find them without looking.

Photography

I’ve (Alan) started posting more regular photographs to my weblog and announced the existence of a Picture-of-the-Week section. This general idea is that it will publicly hold me to higher standard and help me get out shooting more often. So far, it hasn’t worked out that way, but perhaps I’ll have a moment or two this weekend to drive down to Big Sur and capture a few wonderful images. (link)

Click on Picture of the Week search link in the text. If you make an account and let me know about it, I’ll add you to my friends and family groups so you can see more photos.

Calendar of Events

We are quite swamped for the next month dealing with rentals and work-related items so are not scheduling any games. If you are interested if playing CashFlow™, let us know and we’ll co-ordinate something via e-mail.

Highlights include:

• Passive Income Conference
• Home Automation
• REIN Quickstart Course

Printable PDF Link.

REIN Quickstart

KC

Recently I have been getting some questions regarding the REIN Quickstart program from other people. Upon hearing that an event was organized in the not too distant future, I decided to sign up and learn more about REIN.
I arrived on Friday evening in order to attend one of their regular monthly meetings. I found the evening to be packed full of information and looked forward to the next day, when the Quickstart course was scheduled to start.
The next morning I arrived and positioned myself in the front row. I took my pen and paper out and prepared myself for a repeat of the previous evening. I was not disappointed. The weekend was absolutely packed with useful information, not necessarily all about real estate either. There was some basic, how to interact with the business world information that I found invaluable.
Immediately following the weekend I was able to put something into practice and I was pleased and amazed with the results. It was a simple thing — saying “Thank You”. In the previous week, I had done some business with our bank and was very pleased with their service. I wrote a thank you card to our banker and to her manager and delivered them in person with some doughnuts. The reaction in person with our banker was almost comical. I was unable to get a word in and finally left with a chuckle. Later that day I got a phone call from the manager to thank me for my “Thank You” card and the following week I got a card in the mail from our banker thanking us for our “Thank You” card. Basically there was a whole lot of thanks going around. It was a rewarding experience. I have since made use of this technique with similar results.

Passive Income Days

KC

Darren Weeks presented a full and information packed weekend for Canadians. He arranged to present some very accessible investment opportunities over the course of the weekend. There was a tangible excitement in the air as many of us realised that these opportunities were within reach and open for investment. The structure of the event was straightforward; investment opportunities were presented and then attendees had all weekend to question the team to learn more about their product or service. Some were clearly more passive than others; letting the conference participants “dial-a-return” on their investment.

Home Automation

Alan

For a few of you, this is going to be a strange little bit of praise. Especially coming from me, man of iPod, techno-stuff and other gizmos. I suppose in some sense, the object of my admiration is in fact a gizmo – a domestic wonder gizmo if you will. What deserves such a heaping of happiness? Our washing machine. The one that washes all our clothes. Efficiently, gently and conveniently. We purchased an LG WD-3274RHD about three years ago. It’s an all-in-one or combo-unit. The idea here is to save on space, water and energy. Effectively, the machine is both a washing machine and dryer in a single unit. About 2 cubic feet (think small moving box-full) of clothes can be washed (and optionally dried) at a time. The duration of the cycles are quite long, but the automation and all-in-one convenience is fantastic. Throw a load in before you go to bed, set the timer and the clothes are clean and dry in the morning. Pull a similar stunt on your way out the door for work and you will return to more clean, dry clothes. These machines really shine in small spaces or for people with lower laundry volumes. The longer cycle times would really frustrate someone who needed to move a lot of dirty clothes into the clean basket. In particular, my European friends tell me that the reason behind the tardiness is the 110 VAC current we have in North America. In Europe residential electrical service is 220 VAC (typical) and therefore a given 10-15A circuit can provide twice the power as they can in Canada, the USA and Mexico. The actual wash times are comparable, so if you are a hang-to-dry type, as we are, you don’t really notice the slowdown in throughput. I think the extra high-speed spin cycle alone makes the machine worth it. Clothes come out damp or nearly dry. Hanging items overnight is usually sufficient, meaning you don’t have to abuse your clothes in a high-temperature dryer. I figure the savings in clothing life-time, detergent and power will have us coming out ahead over the life-time of the machine. We’ll be replacing it with another one of the same ilk when the time comes. It really is a step ahead of anything we’ve used to date.

Happy Holidays

Both

A happy, hearty, healthy holiday to all our friends, family and associates. We hope you find a few moments this winter season to reflect on that for which you can be thankful.

Calendar of Events

Jan, 11th 2006

CashFlow™ Game Night : Join us for a fun evening playing CashFlow™. Never played? Come anyway – you’ll be glad you did. It’s a great learning experience and a fantastic way to meet new people. We are going to host our next game night in early January, drop us a line if you are interested in participating. Our last evening was an excellent experience for everyone and we all had a good time. Please RSVP by Jan, 4th 2006.

Cool Sites

LG Electronics

http://lge.com/

And our WD-3274RHD can be found out there at Amazon:
http://ln-s.net/9jg

Currently Reading

Peopleware : Productive Projects and Teams

by Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister
© 1987 Dorset House Publishing Co.
ISBN: 0932633439

Widely acknowledged as a classic text about the people behind the software , the authors have a significant amount of experience with software development process and much of the data is based on the period 1977-1987. Sadly, their findings are appearing to be as relevant today as they were nearly 20 years ago.

Links Collected from this Issue

The links from the newsletter are collected here so you don’t have to deal with retyping or PDF reader issues:

Calendar

Power Within™ : http://ln-s.net/7Gl

Books

Pending Update

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Little, Brown & Co, 2005

ISBN : 0-316-17232-4

Amazon | Indigo | Abe Books


A Handbook for the Spiritual Traveler by Riaz Manji

Stepping Stone Publishing, 2001

ISBN : 097305350X

Amazon | Indigo | Abe Books

Who Will Cry When You Die?

by Robin Sharma

Hay House, 2002

ISBN : 1401900127

Amazon | Indigo | Abe Books


Cool Sites

Abe Books : http://www.abebooks.com/

CoolTool Blog : http://www.kk.org/cooltools/