Hey Everyone,
So a good portion of the world was told to stop working yesterday, but the instruction didn’t come from the bosses. Outlook went down, and suddenly documents weren’t getting through, answers weren’t coming back and a few carefully planned timelines were looking a little less certain.
Now, plenty of people were reasonable about it. A quick call along the lines of, “Hey, is your email down too? I’ll send the docs as soon as it’s back up. Does that work?” and things could wait. Everyone understood what was happening.
But it did expose a small flaw in a familiar approach to getting things done.
“If you leave everything until the last minute, it only takes a minute.”
It’s a good joke. The problem is that you’re assuming that last minute will be available. Yesterday, Microsoft had other plans.
Most of the time, you can get away with putting something off. You know where the document is, it’ll only take a moment to send, and there are other things asking for your attention. Then the email stops working, the person you need is away or something unexpected takes over your afternoon.
Suddenly, a simple task has become a scramble.
With a mortgage, there’s another part that’s easy to overlook: sending your documents is only your step in the process.
Someone still needs to review them. They might have a question, need a clearer copy or discover that a statement is missing a page. If you’ve used up all the available time getting the documents sent, you’ve left very little for any of that to happen.
Getting something done early gives the next person time to do their part. It also gives you time to answer a follow-up without trying to sort it out from the parking lot before your shift starts.
So here’s a small thing to do before the weekend: take care of one thing you already have everything you need to finish. Send the requested document. Return the call. Ask the question you’ve been meaning to ask.
If that question is about buying a home or renewing your mortgage, give me a call. Let’s get it started while there’s still time to work through it properly.
Enjoy the weekend, everyone. Hopefully you get to decide when you stop working today.
-Andrew
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