REINCheck

[MUSIC]

VO [00:00:06] You're listening to REINCheck with Andrea Rice, Contracts and Industry Specialist at REIN, where you get the latest member news and information delivered straight from the source, REIN MLS.

[MUSIC]

Andrea Rice [00:00:20] Hello and welcome to REINCheck, I'm your host, Andrea Rice, and today we are checking in with former SMAC member Lisa Frates. Lisa, thank you for taking time to join us today to share some fun and useful life hacks.

Lisa Frates [00:00:34] Thank you, Andrea. I'm happy to be here on such a fun podcast.

Andrea Rice [00:00:38] Yeah, so normally, our episodes kind of center around form changes or legal updates, or we just did one on a system update with Supra, but I thought it might be fun to do something a little bit different today. So I had sent out a request to some of my colleagues asking what their favorite life hacks were. And so today we are going to be sharing those with all of you. So, hopefully, you enjoy this. I mean, who doesn't love a good life hack, right, Lisa?

Lisa Frates [00:01:08] Exactly. I especially love health hacks and business hacks.

Andrea Rice [00:01:13] Yes, yes. And actually, you have a good business time-saving hack that you're going to share with us. So do you want to start out with that one?

Lisa Frates [00:01:21] Sure. Sure. So if any of you are like me after a really busy day, at the end of the day I'm thinking, Oh my God, I was crazy busy, but I didn't get done the stuff that I needed to get done today, and I came across this YouTube YouTuber. I guess, what are they, influencers? His name is Joshua Becker. And actually, how I came across him is my New Year's resolution was to be more of a minimalist. I'm not one at all, but I want to be more of one. So he has a lot of stuff on organization, but this one was kind of on being successful and accomplishing your goals. And so I want to share this with you. So in the morning, when you're drinking your coffee, sit down and write down the three most important task that you need to do that day, and then rather than at the end of the day, saying, Oh my gosh, I was busy, but I didn't get certain things done. You're going to be accomplishing the most important task that you need to do that day. And then the other cool part of this is that have your goals available so you can see them. And at the end of the week, look and see if your three most important things are lining up with your goals.

Andrea Rice [00:02:38] Interesting. Yeah, I like that. What was his name again?

Lisa Frates [00:02:42] Joshua Becker.

Andrea Rice [00:02:44] Yeah. I think that's really, really a good little hack there, something so simple to do, but really can keep you on track.

Lisa Frates [00:02:54] Exactly, and it works, I've been doing it.

Andrea Rice [00:02:56] Oh really.

Lisa Frates [00:02:57] Yeah, yeah.

Andrea Rice [00:02:59] I'm going to definitely start doing that and checking that out. OK, so this next life hack I got from Jim Wetzel and I'm sure a lot of you listening know him. Jim's out there at VPAR. And Jim, if you're listening, I wish you had shared this with me two years ago. It was this interesting little life hack that I did not know about. So, you know, in the last two years, everyone's life seems to have revolved around Zoom, right? Actually, we're recording this podcast right now via Zoom. But I did not know if you were on a Zoom call and you are on mute, all you need to do is press down the spacebar to unmute yourself and talk. And then when you're done talking, let go and boom, you're back on mute. So you can leave yourself on mute and just press on the spacebar when you want to talk. No need to like move your mouse. Click, unclick mute. Boom, so easy. And I think that's really helpful when you're in meetings and you just want to say something real quick, but you want to go right back on meet.

Lisa Frates [00:04:04] Yes, exactly. And it's so funny because you're listening to the meeting, and then somebody will call on you, and you're trying to find that little icon to click on. So that's great. I love it.

Andrea Rice [00:04:14] Yeah.

Lisa Frates [00:04:16] Another live hack I want to share with you is Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson has read over 600 books, and he does this philosopher notes, and it's about 20 minutes long. But he takes a book, and these books are on things such as like your purpose, leadership, business, learning, health, energy, I mean, like all kinds of topics, and he pulls out the big ideas out of each book. And you know, you can listen to more books and get exposed to more information in less time. So 600 books he has done. Google him. His program is called Optimize Me. It's free. It wasn't free when I joined last year and I've listened to so many books that I order the ones that I just think are life-changing. I've got to have, so I've ordered a lot of the books that he's talked about. But again, 20 minutes and you can either print it out and read it or you could listen to it. Yeah, great stuff.

Andrea Rice [00:05:18] I love that because I am one of those people that will I have, you know, 20 books that I haven't read lined up at my home. But I will continue to buy more books, so I never have the time to read all of the books that I want to read. But I love that he gives you those, you know, the main meat of it so that, you know, you can get that information without having to read the whole book if you don't want to. I just love that. Yes, it's really good. This next one may not be as educational and profound as your last life hack, Lisa, but the one I love the most is Ziploc bags. I mean, I feel like Ziploc bags are like the epitome of life hacks. There are so many things you can do with a Ziploc bag. For example, I spent a lot of money getting one of those waterproof pouches for my phone to go to the beach, and then I realized you can just put your phone in a Ziploc bag. Like a three-cent Ziploc bag. Boom, your phone is safe in the beach. And then I typically like to go to the grocery store and buy bananas and so that they can see the outside of the grocery store before they go in my trash can. Right? Like because we bring the bananas home they spoil and I've never used them. But you can take your bananas when they get ripe. Section them off for your smoothie. Put them in a Ziploc bag. Put them in your freezer. Boom, they're there and they can live their full life's purpose just by using a Ziploc bag. And then another thing, I recently moved and I was using Ziploc bags for all types of things, like putting my makeup in so that it wouldn't get all over things when I moved or when I was taking the curtain rods down and I didn't want to lose the screws and, you know, all the hardware that went with each particular curtain rod. I just put those all in the big Ziploc bags and taped those to the curtain rod. So I just feel like there's so many things you can do with Ziploc bags.

Lisa Frates [00:07:18] Another thing that I do with Ziploc bags, if I have a little bit of wine left over, sometimes I'll put that in a Ziploc bag and throw it in the freezer. So then when I'm cooking and making sauces or sautéing stuff, I will go ahead and pull it out and use it.

Andrea Rice [00:07:35] I love that because I never have cooking wine when I need it. So that is, and you don't want to throw away like wine, but it's not good anymore. So yeah, that's perfect. That's perfect.

Lisa Frates [00:07:47] Another life hack that people might be interested when you're getting your listings ready for the market. This is something that's good for the environment, too, but you can actually boil water, add a little bit of salt to it, boil water and you can put it on all the sidewalk and driveway cracks that have the weeds growing out and it kills the weeds.

Andrea Rice [00:08:09] Oh, I like that it's cost effective and environmentally friendly.

Lisa Frates [00:08:14] Yes. You're not using the chemicals. Exactly.

Andrea Rice [00:08:16] Yes. All right. And then I want to leave you all with my favorite life hack. Did you know that you can get new episodes of REINCheck delivered directly to your email by simply going to REINMLS.com/podcast and subscribing to REINCheck? That way, you never miss an episode, and you can tune in when it's convenient to you. All right, so that may not be so much of a life hack as it is a shameless plug, but you get the idea. Lisa, thank you so much for taking time to join us today and share some of these life hacks, and thank all of you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I hope you found at least one life hack that you thought was useful and that you can incorporate into your everyday life. Thank you and have a great rest of your day.

[MUSIC]

VO [00:09:05] You've been listening to REINCheck with Andrea Rice. Stay in the know from those who know. Delivered straight from the source, REIN MLS.

[MUSIC]