How To Complete Your House Manual In 6 Months
Edited by Mark Harbeke
500 hours.
In my experience, and that of many of my estate manager-clients, this is realistically the amount of time it takes to complete a house manual for your UHNW principal. To do this job well means factoring in things like communicating with staff and contractors to gather documents, processing that information and inputting that data into a program that allows you to access for your day-to-day needs.
Since this is a task that’s often built into your job description and employee agreement, it’s really important to focus and get it done.
But…
In a (rather rosy) scenario where you work 40 hours per week, that’s 2,000 hours per year. If house manual completion takes a quarter of that time, this means more than 1 day out of your work week is devoted towards accomplishing it.
Do you think this is achievable given all that’s on your plate?
You’ll need to work strategically to get this done.
Our recent Coffee Talk focused specifically on this plan. It included the tripping points (and how to overcome them), accountability tips and scheduling – as well as realistic budgets you’ll need to tackle this monumental project.
Here’s the video:
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The video gives more content on this topic, and is the perfect length to take in over your next coffee break. But if you’re looking for the fastest way to get started on this large and important project, read on….
Here are 8 Pro Tips to complete your house manual in 6 months:
Create an outline of what your house manual needs. It may help you to use the lens that I use from the perspective of UHNW families, which is lowering their risk of lawsuits, reducing technical and mechanical failures and preparing for medical and natural disasters.
So my outline includes:
Contractor information (specifically, their liability and worker’s compensation insurance certificates)
HR documentation
Mechanical information
Emergency plans, supplies and equipment (generators, fire extinguishers, AED, etc.)
Create a budget (many EMs fail to address this). Start with time investment. That 500 out of 2,000 work hours per year I mentioned earlier is realistic, so make sure to build in the time.
Related Pro Tip: If you’re the only one working on this, you can use voice dictation into Notes, Trello or some other software to capture details as you walk through the home. Or, record your voice dictation and send to a virtual assistant.
Calendar the work. Develop a monthly focus and add it to your calendar every week so your team can see what’s next. For example:
May - contractors’ info
June - staff and principal profiles
July - household inventories
August - mechanical data
September - emergency preparedness
October - master household task list and 12-month maintenance calendar
Make a Master List of needed information. Get specific with every piece of info needed and organize into categories (your list of contractors, emergency prep, inventories, housekeeping tasks, etc.).
Involve the homeowner or chief of staff.
Ask if this is an acceptable work schedule and get their buy-in.
Discuss the budget (and discuss whether it makes sense to purchase house manual templates, create a digital management system or hire a consultant to take some or all of this off your plate).
Provide weekly updates with your progress.
Engage your staff. Here’s how:
Delegate data collection
Give specific examples of the needed information
Give them a deadline (by Friday…)
Hold them accountable
Consider paying for assistance. You can:
$ = Purchase house manual templates. I sell these, and they’re available from other companies in our community as well.
$$ = Hire an assistant (virtual or live). Hire gig workers through platforms like: Fiverr, UpWork, Freelancer, or Craigslist.
$$$ = Engage a consultant to complete this for you.
Finally, prioritize data collection in your weekly schedule.
In summary…
Here are your important takeaways:
Remember to treat this as a major project
Engage and delegate to staff, purchase templates or systems or hire help
Stick to your plan
Keep the homeowner updated
Now you’re ready to get started! When you’re actively working on it, I recommend doing things like turning your phone off or setting it to “Do not disturb” and, if you’re likely to get interupted (probably always), use a sticky note on your computer with your primary goal in order to stay focused – that says something like “Pantry Inventory.”
Think how good it will feel when your house manual is finished.
You’ve got this!
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I hope this is helpful information. If there’s a way I can help you complete your house manual, please reach out. I’d love to hear from you.
xo
Kelly
