Effective and Efficient Time Management For Real Estate Professionals

Time management is one of those things that we might not necessarily love to do. Oftentimes, I would hear people say “I’d rather do things than plan them” and to a certain extent, I do agree with that. I am not much of a planner myself. However, there is a difference between planning for the sake of planning or as a real estate agent friend of mine once said, “getting ready to get ready”, and planning efficiently in order to maximize your productivity and lessen room for error. Why Is It Important For Real Estate Professionals To Manage Time? “I got into real estate so I don’t have to confine myself to schedules” is something you might hear pretty often from real estate professionals at the mention of time blocking. But the fact of the matter is this, “Poor planning can and oftentimes will result in stress, and the more stressed you are, the harder it is to sell real estate.” A lot of the time, stress comes from uncertainty, whether that is in your personal life or at work. One effective way to eliminate or rather, lessen that uncertainty is to plan everything out as much as you can.

The more variables are laid out in front of you, the easier it becomes to figure out what you can and can’t control, and the easier it is to determine which tasks you should prioritize and focus your energy in. It gives you time to prepare for big meetings, home showings, or negotiations. Here are some tips to help you manage your time effectively and efficiently. 1. Write

When we write our thoughts out on a piece of paper or a smartphone, if we are more inclined to do so, we unconsciously create a connection between that idea being born in our mind and the physical act of writing it down. This creates better recall and it makes it harder for us to forget things.

Thought up a promising marketing idea while you were in the shower? Write that down (once you get out of the shower obviously.) Does a potential home seller want to book a zoom call with you? Write that down. It doesn’t even have to look nice, or well-worded, just make sure you put it somewhere so that you don’t forget it.

There are plenty of notebooks that you can use as a planner or journal for this purpose and it comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors. (I personally prefer a smaller-sized journal so I can carry it around wherever I go.) If you’re the type of person who prefers to type things into your phone, your built-in memo or notes app is more than sufficient to get this done. Most note apps nowadays even sync up with your google calendar! 2. Plan Out Your Week

Real estate can be hectic and it may feel like you have a million things to do. An efficient way you can manage your workload is to plan out your tasks on a weekly basis.

Sunday evening, or Monday morning, take some time to write down all the things you need to accomplish for that week. Open house on Friday? Mastermind Tuesday afternoon? Training call on Wednesday? Write that all down. You don’t have to put down the specifics for each task yet, just lay out all of your tasks for the week on a piece of paper. Once you’ve done that… 3. Take Time Every Morning To Plan Your Daily Tasks

Write down all the things you need to accomplish in a day and set aside time blocks for them. This is where you get a little more specific with the tasks you put down in your weekly plan. Write down venues, email addresses, contact numbers, and all the important particulars under each task you write. For example: Meeting with John Where: Zoom Time: 10-11 am

Agenda: Home showing schedule You can even write down what stage of completion it is in. (For example Pending (Waiting for the best time to call back), Completed (Showing scheduled next week Friday)). Set priorities for each task. Now there are plenty of ways how one can set priorities and really, it’s different from person to person. Personally, I like to keep it simple, I figure out when the tasks are due, and the ones that need to be completed immediately take priority. Some people like to prioritize harder tasks first and easier ones last, it is entirely up to you. Try out different systems and see what works best for you. 4. Stick To Your Schedule Now I know this is not possible to do 100% of the time. Things come up that require your immediate attention. However, try your best to stick to your schedule when you can. Have a meeting booked? If you booked an hour in your schedule then do your best to keep it to an hour. Did you write down 30 minutes of downtime in your schedule? Then stick to 30 minutes, not any longer.

This will help you make sure you maximize your productivity and have time to finish everything that you have planned out. 5. Know When To Be Flexible The biggest reason people give up planning their schedule is when they can’t stick to it. Although we did say, to stick to your schedule, sometimes things happen and you need to adjust it.

Learn when to adjust your schedule, this is why we set priorities for tasks. Having planned out your schedule initially makes it easier to know HOW to adjust it when you need to. Your schedule is more of a strong suggestion rather than a command for yourself. 6. Be Accountable Now there are different ways to go about this, some people like finding accountability partners with who they share their priorities so they can check on them ever so often to see if they complete their tasks, while some people (myself included) simply make it a point to finish a task once it’s already written. (I don’t want to waste paper okay)

Find ways to help you keep yourself in check. Be honest with yourself, in the end, the whole reason you are figuring out how to manage your time efficiently is for your own benefit anyway. So you have everything to gain. 7. Delegate Figure out the tasks that you can actually delegate to other people. This will help you free up more time in your schedule to complete your other tasks. Divide and conquer as they say.

One of the best ways you can do this is by hiring a virtual assistant. I’m sure that plenty of admin work, cold-calling and lead generation, and marketing tasks are included in your weekly and daily plans. A virtual assistant will take care of all of these for you so you have more time for more intensive tasks.

Here at Transcend, we have virtual assistants that can take care of all that for you so that you can have more time on your hands to focus on tasks that have a more significant effect on your business.

Conclusion

Efficient time management lessens stress so that you can focus more on doing what you do best effectively, real estate. Having everything planned out reduces anxiety and uncertainty, and helps you remember everything you need to, all of which makes it easier to give your 100% at work, thus making more money and growing your business. #timemanagement #goalsetting #schedule #realestate #virtualassistant