Blog Post Thursday: The Calendar Chaos Chronicles

You know that feeling when you think you have plenty of time, and then suddenly... you don't?

That was this week.

Wednesday morning, Kristen and I had a twenty-acre auction listing to finalize and signs to set. Kristen loaded the sign poles, sign skirts, and signs into the Jeep. I grabbed the laptop, the file, the Jackery, my gloves, and the baby sledgehammer. I may have forgotten to mention everything we were taking.

When we were ready to go, Kristen started to get in the passenger side. I said, "Hold up — you're driving."

She said, "What?"

I said, "Unless you want me telling you everything to type and what to do, you should drive."

She got out, walked around, got in, and drove. I worked while she drove.

We had about an hour to an appointment first, then forty minutes out to set the signs. After the signs we made a quick pit stop — ten minutes, tops — said hi to some people, then headed to Bennies in Marion for lunch. I pulled the laptop back out while we waited for our food. I'd started the auction listing the day before, so I finished it up, got it on the website, and closed the laptop.

Kristen was about three-quarters of the way through her lunch.

Mission accomplished.

After lunch we drove to Carbondale to check on the crew and see how things were coming along for the onsite auction.

Then today was the building.

About 550 to 580 lots had already gone live on Tuesday. That was an accident. Someone named Kara did that.

Around 10 this morning I asked Kristen where the rest of the lots were, because I knew we had to get them on today. She called Jay. Jay and Maya were about forty minutes away with the rest of the crew, loading things up to bring back to the building. They came back and got to work — Jay finishing the catalog, Maya finishing the pictures. Jay thought he had more time too. He was not alone in that this week.

We started uploading the remaining lots around 4:20. I only know that because Travis called me right then. That's when we discovered that roughly 45 lots were missing pictures. The truck, tractor, equipment, and the second half of the Indian artifacts. And of course, those are the first lots. 

The pictures existed. Kristen had loaded them into the online catalog before she left. They just weren't syncing to the lots. So I uploaded them again. Still not syncing. I ended up adding them manually.

We're still missing two pictures somewhere down in the catalog. Jay was working on the truck and tractor descriptions and doing final proofing when I walked out the door at 5:31. If you were watching the lots drop today, you saw it happen in real time.

And look — who am I kidding. We might find something next week that slipped past us. I hope not. But this is a 783-lot auction, and we are human.

Which brings me to the real villain of the week: too many calendars. We have a big wall calendar. A small calendar. A goals board. A printable calendar. A written calendar. And another calendar. At some point, having six ways to track time means you're actually tracking nothing.

We're working on fixing that — one central system, accessible to everyone, covering the whole year, with auction end dates front and center. Simple. Clean. One source of truth.

We'll get there. And when we do, we'll probably still have a paper calendar somewhere in the building. But at least we'll know which one actually counts.

Now, I'd like to say this week was an isolated incident. But I have stories.

A few years ago I went to a two-day auction conference in Arkansas. I missed the entire first day. Day two was fine. Great, even. But I missed all of day one. Moving on.

More recently, I only missed two speakers at the Real Estate Auction Summit in Denver, Colorado. A friend had messaged me asking about lunch. I said sure, asked when they were getting there, and then stopped mid-thought. Oh no. I needed a haircut. It was Saturday. I was leaving my house the next morning at 4 a.m. I still had to pack. I knew the conference started Monday. I knew I was getting there Sunday. I just had it slightly scrambled in my head because the Sunday afternoon speaker had canceled, and somewhere my brain decided that meant I didn't really start until Monday — not realizing it was already almost Sunday.

I got my haircut. I packed. I caught my flight. I got there Sunday.

Monday morning, I had gotten a good night's sleep, went and had a nice brunch, and ordered a bloody mary. Then I looked at the schedule.

I paid my bill and walked very quickly back to the hotel.

I was embarrassed. I also had to explain that yes, this had happened before.

Travis does not think this is as funny as I do. I still laugh about it.

Alex doesn't know about Denver. Alex also doesn't know about this week. Let's keep it that way.

We're getting it together. One auction at a time.

Happy Bidding! 
Kara C. Belcher-Miller