Time is the ultimate precious commodity in finance. We never seem to have enough, and no one wants their life to start falling apart.
What life tips have you guys found to keep life glued together while working stupid hours? Keen to learn.
Some of my tips: * Keep a giant jug of dry whole rolled oats in my desk, and a glass Tupperware. When there's no time to go out to eat lunch or dinner (I don't want to order unhealthy food) I just pour oats into the glass Tupperware and microwave up a low-fat meal in 5 minutes.
Keep a fully packed suitcase with fresh clothes and toiletries in the office, and another one at home. That way if I have to travel on short notice, I don't need to go home and pack. Keep a pair of minimalist barefoot running shoes in my luggage so I can hit a run while on business travel. I also have an extra battery for charging up the cell phone, a spare cell phone, and cables and adapters in there.
Exercise efficiently every morning. I have ditched the gym in favor of a few kettlebells. They are versatile and I can get in a decent workout in the morning even if time is short. I have a Tabata timer on the cellphone, and can burn out a HIIT workout pretty quickly.
I use virtual assistants from the Philippines for non-sensitive work / personal work.
I've got my VAs well trained now, to look up email addresses in hunter.io . So when I go to a conference, I just give them the link of the conference agenda, have them spreadsheet out the attendees, then I go into Google Sheets and highlight the people I want to meet, and the VAs get me their email addresses and set up meetings for me.
Fundraising and networking: I use versions of a mass-mailing app inside of Chrome, which integrates into Google Sheets. That way I've got the list of clients / LPs / prospects all good to go, so when I know I'm going into a city, I can just efficiently get the word out to many people at once, and start setting up meetings.
For our family's own rental properties, we get a 'second-hand landlord' who pays us a flat fee for renting from us, does his own redecorating and tenanting work, subdivides the units, and then charges a premium rent. That way we collect the rent quarterly, and he handles everything else. Easy, even tho we're leaving some $ on the table.
Have a QR code as my phone's wallpaper, that links to my contact info and chat application links (Wechat, Linkedin, Whatsapp). That way I'm a button-push away from linking w/ folks.
I have soundproof construction headset to block out office chatter so I can actually get some work done
A lot of my bank and brokerage accounts now use Google Authenticator. So when I enable the Authenticator by scanning QR codes, I use both my regular and spare phone to scan the QR code at the same time. That way if I lose my main phone, I'm not locked of all of my accounts.
Keen to learn from you guys what your hacks are.
Hey earthwalker7, what a lonely thread. I'm here since nobody responded ...so maybe one of these discussions will help:
Calling relevant pros to the rescue! wruizblair @devans99" josephfcunningham
Fingers crossed that one of those helps you.
Is it just me or does everyone say “hacks” now instead of “tips”?
THANK YOU
ok well noted. I'll go back and change the offending word in the body. WSO won't let me change the title tho, it's fixed.
Thanks for the info
How often do you have to travel though that you keep a suitcase at the office?
This could actually work against you if you’ve ever read Liars Poker or Straight to Hell
Cheers. Not sure what you mean re suitcase in office is bad. i don't believe it leads me to travel more, if that's what you might be referring to.
I'm not saying there is anything bad about it, I just know that co-workers sometimes will play pranks on people who leave suitcases at the office by swapping out their stuff for pornographic magazines and shit like that. They even put metal hangers shaped like a gun in their suitcase so then when airport security has to open it thinking it's a weapon they find all this porn in there.
Maybe people are nicer where you work, I don't know. Stay safe!
damn bro, I have such boring co-workers. They would not even think to do that, sadly. I envy your hijinx
Very helpful post. I keep a ready suitcase/travel bag with me at home at all times in case I need to park the car and grab a taxi/UBER (or Lyft) to leave right away. The toiletries are a must-have along with the extra cell phone/charger/battery chargers.
I get my workouts done in the morning, between breaks, and evenings.
I have never used a Virtual Assistant, what would you recommend?
I found that I was best served posting on Elance for individuals to help me, rather than going thru a big agency (agencies include BrickWorks and MyManInIndia).
Small agencies are ok. The key is to find a good provider and train them up. For instance, I eventually found a few ladies in the Philippines that are pretty hard working. After investing some time in them, they were able to do some ok PPT work and look up email addresses for me in Hunter.io, which helped me in deal prospecting. One gal in the Philippines was awesome at building pivot tables for data analysis - but she was rare; most of the ladies were just simple secretarial execution. In general I found the ladies to be better than men at execution of admin and PPT tasks, and I've Philippines to be much better than India or Pakistan or even USA. For harder stuff, I've worked with analysts in USA, who do actual harder work, but of course, you pay much more for that. In all cases, I find the best way is to limp in to each task. Have them spent 30 minutes working on a task and revert with partially completed product. That way you can be sure they are doing what you intend, otherwise if it's not done right, it's your ass on the line.
Elance (elance dot com) is good for contracted help Accelerate (tryaccelerate dot com) is good for dedicated Phillipino assistants for $5 / hr Fiverr (fiverr dot com) is contracted help as well
I prefer dedicated assistants that stay with me as I am able to train them.
OP how do you train them in PPT? Or do your VAs come already trained? What else do they do for you?
I have quite a few dress shirts but I also have about 6 white shirts. On days when you're running late / want to get out in the morning you don't have to worry about anything. White shirt will go with black / grey / blue pants so no matching issues / etc.
Yup. Always keep a few white shirts folded in my desk in the office
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