When I started as a real estate professional a few years ago, I scrambled to get up to speed as quickly as possible. I spent those first years learning the business, mastering the basic internet technologies and investing in extra training to equip me for this challenging market I’d entered. And I worked like a dog! All the time.
Over the past year I’ve made several reforms to my fledgling real estate business to make it work better for me. I’ve had to be realistic about what one little lady can realistically get done in a day. In the course, I’ve learned some things about time:
(1) For one thing, time is truly NOT manageable, so I’ve stopped trying to manage it and just learned to respect it as the precious, non-renewable resource that it is.
(2) For another thing, my choices truly ARE manageable, and so I’ve learned to choose my activities wisely. I am constantly on the lookout for ways to do less and accomplish more.
To that end I have begun keeping a running list of things I MUST do to keep my business healthy, and things I’d LIKE to do to make my business grow. I’ve developed my own systems and checklists for every aspect of my short sale and investor's agent niches, to help smooth those often volatile transactions as much as possible.
I’ve learned to choose the most important things that must be accomplished each day and just get those done first thing. The way I do that is by blocking out my mornings for all of the MUST-DO items that will keep me in business – lead generation, first of all, and client care items after that. To facilitate this I have adopted a No-Calls-or-Emails-Before-11 a.m. rule. And I stick to it. I actually turn the phone off, so that I can’t even hear it vibrating in the background. It works beautifully.
I keep the list right on my computer desktop, and as I finish each job, I actually do check it off. This not only feels great when I do it, but it also serves to visually remind me of all that I am accomplishing each day.
And a few times each week, I also block out some afternoon “Project” time, when, once again, I turn the phone off and close the email program while I concentrate on the job at hand – those forward-focused activities designed to grow my business.
Using these systems, “Efficiency in Real Estate” is finally becoming a comfortable habit with me.
What's working for you in your real estate business? There's still time to share your great ideas for eliminating inefficencies in your business by joining this DocuSign Challenge.
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