September means Again to Fundamentals right here at Inman. As actual property navigates the post-settlement period with new fee guidelines, actual property professionals from throughout the nation will share what’s working for them, how they’ve advanced their methods and instruments, and the place they’re investing personally.
Let’s face it — when you don’t management your schedule in actual property, it would management you. Should you’re wishing for extra time for a trip and even two days off in a row, right here’s an inventory of confirmed methods that can assist you create extra time in your schedule, enhance your productiveness, and improve your well-being.
6 time administration myths
With regards to creating extra time in your busy schedule, listed here are six time administration myths that may block your success.
Fantasy 1: I can handle time.
There’s no such factor as “time management.” All of us have the identical 24 hours per day.
Reality: You’ll be able to solely handle your self and the alternatives you make about the way you spend your time.
Fantasy 2: I have to be obtainable 24/7 to achieve success.
Brokers who really feel they have to be obtainable 24/7 are afraid they may lose the consumer relationship until they’re obtainable at a second’s discover.
Reality: The most important grievance shoppers have about their actual property brokers is that they fail to remain in contact, not that they have to be obtainable 24/7 on a second’s discover. To keep away from this problem, be proactive about staying in contact together with your shoppers by reaching out to them a minimal of three to 5 occasions per week. Additionally, it’s necessary to ask your shoppers their most well-liked approach of staying in contact with them: textual content, electronic mail, cellphone or social media.
Fantasy 3: I’m the one one who can do it.
Should you make greater than minimal wage promoting actual property and also you’re doing minimal wage jobs, akin to filling brochure bins, selecting up keys, going to the submit workplace, and so on., otherwise you’re not utilizing a transaction coordinator, you’re doing a poor job of utilizing your time correctly.
Reality: Delegating these chores frees up your schedule to generate extra leads, deal with extra shoppers and take extra time without work.
Fantasy 4: I can’t afford to take time without work.
While you’re working on adrenaline and completely stressed, your life can spin uncontrolled. You might be stopped for rushing, have an accident, provoke an argument with a consumer or change into sick. When your life is in chaos, additionally, you will entice shoppers and conditions which are chaotic as properly.
Reality: You’ll be able to’t afford to not take time without work. To interrupt this cycle, take a minimal of in the future per week off and at the least one weekend a month. In case you are nervous about being obtainable for emergencies, pair up with one other agent you belief and canopy for one another in your days off.
Fantasy 5: Taking time without work will trigger my enterprise to lower.
Surprisingly, the precise reverse is true. Have you ever ever seen that the second you intend a trip (create plenty of area in your schedule), your corporation instantly will increase? Creating area lets you entice extra enterprise. When your schedule is jam-packed, you lack area for brand spanking new enterprise to look.
Reality: To create more room in your corporation, clear your schedule for a trip, clear your closet, clear your desk, clear your storage, and so on.
Fantasy 6: I can’t reside with out my cellphone.
Chances are high your cellular phone is making you much less environment friendly. Every time you interrupt one other exercise to reply a name, reply to a textual content or learn a notification, it will possibly take as much as 20 minutes to regain your focus. Even worse, when you do that whenever you’re with shoppers, you ship a nonverbal message they don’t seem to be as necessary as your incoming name, textual content or notification.
Reality: To interrupt this sample, do this experiment for one week. Place your cellphone in airplane mode when you’re prospecting, working with shoppers, at household meals or some other necessary private time. After you end, take your cellphone off airplane mode and deal with any calls, messages or emails that it’s good to tackle.
10 extra time effectivity methods
To liberate extra of your time, use any of the ten time effectivity ideas beneath.
Technique 1: Consciousness
To extend your consciousness, start by monitoring the place you spend your time. Keep away from making an attempt to alter something. As a substitute, merely write down the way you spent your time every day on varied actions. Use your laptop or your appointment guide for monitoring.
Particularly, for the following week, document how a lot time you spend on lead technology, appointments, dealing with transaction issues, household time, private time, commuting, chores, and so on.
Additionally, observe how a lot time you spend enjoying laptop video games, coping with interruptions to your work resulting from non-work-related calls or texts, and posting or scrolling on social media and apps. Most individuals miss how pricey these refined time-wasters could be.
Now, complete up how a lot time you spent on your corporation and devoted private time and the way a lot time you wasted that might be put to raised use.
Technique 2: Attempt the 80-20 experiment for one month
Start by dividing a bit of paper into 4 quadrants after which getting into the next data.
- Within the higher left quadrant, place the actions that you just like to do and which are worthwhile. Dedicate about 80 % of your time to the actions on this quadrant.
- Within the higher proper quadrant, place the actions that you just hate to do however are worthwhile. (This might be holding an open home, door knocking, and so on.)
- Within the decrease left quadrant, listing what you get pleasure from doing however isn’t worthwhile. This might embody attending networking occasions or spending time doing social media posts that don’t produce outcomes.
- Within the decrease proper quadrant, document the unprofitable actions you hate doing.
The 80-20 rule tells us that the highest 20 % of our actions are chargeable for 80 % of our outcomes. Consequently, spend as a lot time as attainable on the actions within the higher left quadrant and keep away from the “below the line” actions for the following month.
By way of the “hate to do, but profitable” quadrant, you may have three choices. Delegate them by taking a accomplice, rent an in workplace or digital assistant, or power your self to do the exercise anyway. Once more, until you made lower than minimal wage in promoting actual property, delegate as many minimal wage actions as attainable.
On the finish of the month, examine your manufacturing, private time without work, and stress stage to the previous month. They need to be dramatically higher.
Technique 3: Give attention to finishing your prime 3 enterprise and private motion objects day by day
Reasonably than reacting to those that make calls for in your time, determine the highest three duties that may have the largest impression on your corporation, akin to securing a brand new itemizing, closing a deal, or following up on a scorching lead — and be sure to deal with these objects first.
Additionally apply the identical strategy to your private life, whether or not it’s a household dinner, unwinding with a glass of wine and a fantastic guide, or attending soccer recreation together with your children or grandkids, these breaks really make you extra productive whenever you return to work.
Technique 4: Saying ‘yes’ to saying no
The stress to be obtainable 24/7 can result in burnout and inefficiency. Consequently, it’s necessary to guard your time. Brokers generally waste priceless time on unimportant duties resulting from their incapacity to say “No.” Simply because a scenario is a precedence or pressing for another person doesn’t imply it is best to alter your priorities.
For instance, when you have a household dinner deliberate for tonight and a purchaser’s agent is urgent you to do a exhibiting, merely say, “No.” As my husband, who’s a enterprise and private coach, likes to say, “No is a complete sentence.” No justification is critical.
If the pushy agent continues to press you, merely say, “I’ve a conflicting appointment. I can do the exhibiting tomorrow at 10 a.m. or 5 p.m. Which works greatest for you?
Studying to say no helps you regain management over your schedule and provides you extra time for each work and your private life.
Technique 5: Use the 2-minute rule
If a activity could be accomplished in two minutes or much less, akin to replying to a fast electronic mail or confirming a exhibiting, do it instantly. This retains your to-do listing from turning into cluttered with minor duties whereas permitting you to focus in your highest-priority objects. By dealing with these fast duties on the spot, you save time by not having to circle again to finish the duty later.
Technique 6: Apply the ‘Pomodoro’ approach: 25-minute bursts coupled with 5-minute breaks
Fixed interruptions by our shoppers and colleagues and surprising points usually make it exhausting to remain on observe. By setting particular time blocks for duties akin to prospecting, consumer follow-ups and paperwork, it’s a lot simpler to keep away from turning into distracted.
Within the late Eighties, Francesco Cirillo created the Pomodoro approach that over 2 million folks have used.
Right here’s what to do:
- Establish the duty you wish to work on.
- Set a timer for 25 minutes.
- When the timer stops, take a 5-minute break.
- After 4 classes, take a 15 to 30-minute break.
- The lively working time is named Pomodoros.
Setting the timer creates urgency, however the time-block (pomodoro) is brief sufficient to handle simply. It additionally creates a singular focus that eliminates multitasking and minimizes the variety of distractions you expertise.
Technique 7: Group related duties collectively
Grouping related duties collectively, akin to scheduling all consumer conferences in a single afternoon or making all follow-up calls in a single session, reduces the psychological load of regularly switching gears. This methodology is especially helpful in actual property, the place multitasking can simply result in errors.
Grouping related duties collectively will scale back the period of time required to finish every activity. For instance, when you should run errands, time-block them collectively so you are able to do them in a single journey or do all of your observe up or prospecting calls in a single sitting.
Technique 8: ‘Eat that Frog’
Brian Tracy’s Eat that Frog! is a traditional guide on easy methods to overcome procrastination. With regards to your actual property enterprise, the “frog,” is the largest, ugliest activity of the day. Try this first, and get it out of the way in which.
Technique 9: Incorporate buffer time between duties
In actual property, surprising emergencies and consumer calls for can simply disrupt your day. Incorporating buffer time between duties lets you deal with these interruptions with out derailing your whole schedule. This additional time additionally supplies a possibility to decompress and refocus, decreasing stress and stopping burnout. By planning for the surprising, you’ll be able to keep management over your day and be certain that your necessary duties nonetheless get achieved.
Technique 10: Use the 4-3-2-1 strategy to schedule your private time without work
While you plan your schedule for the month, schedule your private time without work first and deal with it as being as necessary as occurring a list appointment.
To do that, schedule:
- 4 weekend days off every month.
- Three nights every week the place you may have time for a leisurely dinner and night with family members.
- Two days every month the place you’re taking a full day to spend time with mates or household.
- At the least in the future solely for your self, the place you play golf, get a therapeutic massage or do no matter is critical to flee from the enterprise for a day.
The key to creating extra time whenever you haven’t any is to ditch the six time administration myths that maintain you again after which select which confirmed methods above you wish to apply in your corporation and private life — the extra you apply the extra productive you can be. And meaning the extra time you’ll have for you and your family members.
Bernice Ross, president and CEO of BrokerageUP and RealEstateCoach.com, and the founding father of RealEstateWealthForWomen.com is a nationwide speaker, writer and coach with over 1,500 revealed articles.
