The to-do list for real estate agents can often get quite lengthy, making time management an essential key to becoming successful in this field. If you don’t want to work 60-70 hours a week (and we don’t recommend putting in anywhere near this many hours), you’ll need to develop an effective way to organize your time.
Fortunately, there’s no reason why you should work more than 40 hours a week as a real estate agent. In fact, most of the best agents rarely exceed 40 hours in a typical work week. Moreover, there is a considerable body of research that has found your productivity actually drops precipitously when you work insane 60-70 weeks. In addition, this type of workaholic schedule sets you up for burnout.
So how can you maintain a 40-hour work week and still accomplish everything that needs to be done to build a successful real estate career? The following time management tips will help you optimize your time spent working to ensure you get more done in fewer hours.
Time blocking is an effective way to strategically organize your time. By blocking out set periods of time to focus on a specific task (i.e., scheduling appointments, following up with leads, writing contracts, etc.), you can harness your focus to get more done than is possible when you switch gears every few minutes.
While you may want to get even more granular and block out specific chunks of time each day, we recommend first approaching this process from a weekly view. Here’s what an example of a time-blocked week may look like:
There are a few key points to keep in mind when time blocking:
When you understand how to prioritize tasks, you’ll be able to focus your energy on the items that truly need your attention. We recommend using the Eisenhower Matrix as a framework for prioritizing your daily tasks. The Eisenhower Matrix helps you organize your to-do list into four primary categories in order to identify which items should be prioritized:
Based on this matrix, you should prioritize your tasks in the following manner:
These are the tasks that are both urgent and important. They represent the core tasks that directly impact the success of your business (and your ability to earn money), such as:
You should be blocking out time in your day to get these tasks done, and you should generally prioritize them early in the day while you’re still fresh.
Important, but not urgent tasks should be scheduled into your day, but completed after you handle the items that are both important and urgent. Examples of important, but not urgent tasks include:
Tasks that are urgent, but not important should be delegated whenever possible. Since they are urgent, you need to make sure they get done. However, it’s not essential for you to do them yourself since they’re not important.
Examples of urgent, but not important tasks that you can potentially delegate include:
Delegating tasks can be tricky when you’re first starting out in real estate since you may not have this help available at your brokerage. However, you don’t need to pay for an expensive personal assistant to delegate the tasks that aren’t essential for you to perform. There are affordable ways to outsource this help.
You can find freelancers and virtual assistants on websites such as Fiverr and Upwork that can help you complete these urgent, but not important items at a reasonable cost. Delegating these tasks is a critical way to improve your time management and free up your day to focus on the most pressing items that require your personal attention and focus.
There are inevitably tasks on your plate that aren’t really helping you at all. These are the items that are neither urgent nor important, and which don’t significantly contribute to the success of your real estate business or your ability to achieve the goals you’ve established.
A great example of something you shouldn’t do is have unnecessary meetings with individuals who aren’t helping you grow your business. These are a poor use of your time and should be eliminated from your to-do list entirely.
If you want to build a thriving real estate business, you’ll need to cultivate return clients who also refer you to their friends and family. To accomplish this, you must put in the effort to build relationships with these people.
Fortunately, building these relationships doesn’t require ongoing in-person contact. Instead, you simply need to reach out at the right times to remind these clients you care. Sending messages wishing them a happy birthday, congratulating them on their closing anniversaries, and other similar occasions will go a long way toward forging these relationships.
When you’re starting out, you may be able to manage this process on an Excel spreadsheet, but as your business grows, this will simply not be practical. What will you do when you’re trying to nurture five to ten times as many leads as you have now? How will you remember the preferences and important dates for dozens, if not hundreds, of former clients? If you try to stay on top of these items personally, one of two things will happen:
Using a CRM can save you hours of work every week by eliminating the need to send these messages to former clients personally. It can also allow you to easily stay on top of your lead nurture efforts so that you’re able to turn more of them into clients (who may eventually also become a source of referrals for you).
We’re all human, and there are limitations to our focus and energy. It’s impossible to be extremely productive, effective and efficient all day long, so there’s no point in trying. You’ll be able to remain more productive by giving yourself some break time to recharge and refocus.
For this reason, we recommend allotting time for breaks each day when you’re time blocking your week. Whether you spend time going for a walk, taking a class at the gym, going to a coffee shop to read a book or doing anything else you find relaxing and enjoyable, prioritizing this break time will allow you to finish out your day with renewed energy and focus.
All our online real estate courses are developed and taught by local, licensed real estate professionals, ensuring you receive latest information about the current trends impacting real estate agents in Colorado. You’ll be able to work through all course materials at your own pace, allowing you to fit your studies into your busy schedule.
In addition, you’ll benefit from our VideoConnect Success Learning System™ containing the largest library of video content available. Our video content delivers engaging lessons that allow you to enjoy an authentic classroom experience at home.
Colorado Real Estate School is truly committed to your success, and we back this up with our TruSupport Pass Guarantee™. If you don’t pass your Colorado real estate exam on the first try, our team will give you additional support that includes extended access to all course materials and a customized study plan designed by one of our coaches to help you master the concepts you found most challenging the first time you took the exam. This process will help give you the greatest chance of success when you retake the exam.
Contact us today to learn more about our online real estate courses.
