Time Blocking for Dummies: Take Charge of Your Daily Schedule!
What does your typical day look like? Are you constantly playing catch up - running to and fro, not knowing what will come up next, or where you will need to be??
Hopefully you are not as scattered as all that! And we all have "those days", where unexpected things will come up, and we must drop everything to show a property, or take care of an unexpected request.
Time Blocking for Dummies. A few months ago, I took a series of courses about how to increase productivity. One of these courses included a Time Blocking segment. For those of you unfamiliar with Time Blocking, it is basically a way of blocking out your time so that you are making the most of your daily schedule.
Determine when you plan to start your day and end it, and mark out time for every task on each day. This can be done in your Outlook or Google Calendar, on an Excel spreadsheet, or even drawn out on graph paper.
- Start with the appointments you have with yourself - working out, time spent with your family, daily or weekly things that you will be doing that will not be client, paperwork, or prospecting activities. Mine include driving my daughter to dance class, my yoga classes, getting my daughter ready for school, and any other personal appointments that I have scheduled.
- Next, fill in those weekly activities that you know you want to keep - weekly team or company meetings, blogging time, weekly open houses - whatever it is that you do to market yourself and keep in the know with what is happening in your office.
- Now, you will want to fill in those times when you plan on having client contact. Phone calls, listing appointments, buyer time - schedule it in even if you haven't made the appointment yet. This tells you when you will be doing those activities so that when you do have to schedule them, you will know exactly when that will be.
- Then, schedule in the time when you will be keeping in touch with your sphere and generating new prospects and leads. This includes coffees and lunches, book clubs, networking events - whatever it is that you do to establish, grow or maintain your relationships with your sphere.
- Finally, schedule in Flex Time. This is crucial. Most of us cannot possibly schedule our week without working in some flexibility. This will be the time that you have to run off to show a buyer a home that just came on the market, or that you have to run out to the store for some reason, or that your appointment from the morning ran longer than expected. This is time where you are flexible and able to work various unexpected items into the mix.
When you have done this for a few weeks, you'll start to notice that your hectic schedule seems a lot more manageable and you are able to enjoy what you are doing in the moment, without stressing about what you "should" be doing instead!
Comments(6)