It's Monday morning and my computer beckons to me. It's my quiet time and I'm sitting here contemplating the day ahead.

I really enjoy this time.  Especially on a Monday.  The temptation is there for me to simply shower, shave, find my car keys and leap into action.  But I manfully resist this urge and then calmly start to plan my day.  I start with taking the various lists I used last week and check through them to see what is outstanding and what needs following up.  I then create my Monday morning list of things to do.

The first thing I do is update my diary to included my follow up's and due dates for my work.  Some of them aren't that obvious, and they're the ones that need noting.  For example, I have a variety of applications in place at present with both CBA and Westpac and these two behemoths are moving with what seems to be a glacial pace in the loan approval process.  In fairness to both of these companies, they have been inundated with applications and so their turnaround times are bound to be extended.  But for my nervous first home buyer applicants, even an hour without an approval being reached is agonising.  Mental note to everyone, make sure that you advise potential home buyers to ask for 21 day finance clauses as many contracts are having to be extended at present.

So, this morning I'm making notes of all of my current clients and whether I have good news, bad news or no news, I'm giving them each a call and updating them.  This stops them ringing me throughout the day and also goes towards helping to alleviate their stress levels.  Although I may not be telling them anything other than the bank is still assessing their application, they know that I am on the job, that I haven't forgotten about them and that I'm following the progress closely. 

The other thing I'm doing this morning is planning my month.  I've given myself a target for the month of $2.4m in new loan applications.  But how do I achieve that?

If I work backwards from that figure, I can work out exactly what I need to do.  First, if I work on an average loan size of $300k.  This means that I need to submit 8 applications.  Hang on, what if some get declined?  Well, if I work on an 80% approval rate then that means that I need to submit 10 applications for the month.  Working off my recent interview stats, I'd probably need to do around 15 interviews in order to submit 10 applications (as many first home buyer applicants at the moment just won't stack up to the lenders criteria).  So, I'm aiming for 15 interviews which means that I need approximately 40 leads.

Now, being the beginning of the month, if I then work hard this week to get those interviews from the various lead sources available, I should then be able to plan out my month of appointments, group them wherever possible and by this Friday I'll know whether or not I'm on track to achieve my goal.

I feel much more comfortable with a plan.