Time Out! Real Estate Time Management

Real Estate is a complicated career choice with a lot of stress. Much of the stress is avoidable with good time management practices. Time is a commodity, and we waste so much of it. Value yourself and your time. I want you to ask yourself this question: "Am I regularly and consistently working on things that will move me towards my clearly defined goals?"

Despite the housing market slow down, we are busier than ever chasing leads, networking, building our web presence, and when we have the deals, things really get hectic. There are so many tasks involved in getting a home sold, and then taking it to the closing table. We have those hundreds and hundreds of details and things we need to do constantly floating around in our head. We have to not only remember all of those things, but we have to get them done on time.

We are faced with more pressured than ever before. Time management is more important to our success than many of us realize. We have too much to do in too little time. The good news, we fill a special need in our communities and we are in demand. I am here to tell you that if we manage our time well, we can be living life fully.

The reality of poor time management is simple. You will get fewer leads, fewer referrals, and fewer deals and possibly worse, you will feel over-worked and over-stressed and you will begin to question the very reasons for being in the real estate business.

Time management can help.

Prioritization: A key time management strategy.

Prioritization is ranking your many demands, or opportunities, in some kind of order. This ranking will establish which demands are most deserving of your attention, and the proportion of time best devoted to each. In real estate we need to share our time between different, competing, priorities. By taking the time to analyze and creating a list, we can ensure that our time is being used most effectively.

Priorities should be re-assessed at periodic intervals, probably at least once a month, but not more often than once a week (or whatever works for you). It may help to keep a written priority list in a diary or on computer. Devote around half an hour or so at each review to ensure your list is up to date. Doing so will create a sense of meaningful purpose and satisfaction, especially as you are able to cross things off the previous list.

There will be a number of, possibly many, things on our priority list that cannot be pursued at the present time. It is still worth noting these as there priority may rise as other tasks disappear from our list.

Important and Urgent: Key to establishing priorities.

You should recognize the difference between important and urgent. Important things have great significance. Filing a tax return is important. Get it wrong and you pay too much tax, or face jail. But if there's six months to the filing deadline, it isn't urgent. The completion of key inspections on a home may be urgent if the inspection period ends tomorrow. The longer an important thing is left, the more urgent it becomes.

Learn to Say No: "No" is one of the most important words in the English language.

Everyday we have many things asked of us. Sometimes more than we can reasonably deal with. Many of us find it easy to say no to the pushy salesman. But it can be much harder to reject the requests of friends and family for fear of hurting feelings, seeming unkind or whatever.

We simply cannot oblige every demand life makes upon us. If driving a friend to the airport next Tuesday is going to interfere with a listing appointment, tell them so. In most cases (real) friends and family will understand. If not, then the problem lies with them!

Planning, Discipline and Flexibility: Good planning is an essential component of effective time management.

Plans are the things we need to do (along with the order we need to do them) in order to achieve our life goals.

Plans should be made for varying lengths of time. You may plan what you have to do on a single trip to the office, in a day's work, for a week, a month or ten years. The shorter the timescale, the more detailed the planning will be. Detailed plans shouldn't just state what is to be done, but also how long it should take. The most thorough plans might have both estimated and maximum available times.

Once plans have been made, discipline is required in order to stick to them. It's all too easy to give more time to more enjoyable things without spending enough on less pleasant, but still important others. As said above plans are the means of achieving goals, so by sticking to your plans, even the nasty jobs, we move closer to where we really want to be. This should give satisfaction, but in the event it doesn't, allow yourself a little reward.

Treat plans as road maps rather than computer programs. Computer programs consist of a tightly defined set of instructions for carrying out a given task. In contrast, road maps show you a variety of ways from getting to A and B, and if for some reason your first choice isn't feasible they show you alternatives.

The Best-laid Plans: Life is unpredictable.

The only thing that's certain is uncertainty. Don't battle it; it's the nature of things. Accept uncertainty; embrace it as bringing excitement and adventure. Build slack into your plans. Don't treat plans as set in stone, rather as written in light pencil. Be prepared to change. Be flexible, changing circumstances often bring new and unforeseen opportunities. Learn to look for the silver lining inside every cloud.

Contingency plans: There are two schools of thought on contingency planning.

The first is "don't plan for failure" because "thinking makes it so".

The second is based on Murphy's law, "anything that can go wrong, will", so we'd better have an idea of what we'll do if (or when) it does.

There is truth in both. While we should never plan to fail we must be realistic and accept that not everything will run as smoothly as we'd like. There are many ways to achieve a desired result. In choosing our prime strategy we should at least be aware of the alternatives and be prepared to switch to one if need be.

Deadlines: We all dread deadlines.

Are deadlines stressful? Sure. But deadlines DO get you working at your best. With a deadline hanging over you, you tend to produce. Use deadlines to your advantage. Set yourself deadlines. Give yourself a small treat if you meet them, and/or some (small)"punishment" if you don't.

Try not to get too stressed. Remember, most deadlines are not life and death. If you can't meet them the world will still keep turning, and life will go on.

Relying on Others: One of the hardest elements of time management is relying on other people.

You can keep to your schedule, get your tasks done on time etc. But what if others don't do what you expect of them? It can be very frustrating.

First thing here is choose your associates carefully. Never place more responsibility in the hands of another than you have to. If people aren't doing what they should, don't be afraid to tell them so; or, if need be, replace them. This is one area where contingency planning is definitely recommended.

In short, make sure you do whatever's within your power to ensure your dealings with others goes as smoothly as possible. This won't always be entirely smoothly as others have their own priorities of which your needs are just one. But the point is you've done, and continue to do, all you can to make the relationship effective, and having done this you can't do any more. So don't stress about it.

All Work and No Play: Time management is tough.

It requires a lot of self-discipline. By practicing time management you will ultimately achieve far more than those that just drift along taking things as they come.

Fun is an important part of life. It's the sweetener that makes the more difficult stuff easier to swallow, as well being valuable in its own right. Build fun and chill-out time into your time management schedules. It will make the harder parts easier to fulfill, and lead to better results.

Life is precious: By employing a few simple time management techniques we help ourselves get the most from it.

Set priorities. There are many demands on us from all angles. Recognize the most important.

It's OK to say no. Make plans for different intervals. The shorter the interval, the more detailed the plan.

Remember to include slack-time and be flexible. Uncertainty is the nature of life. Be prepared for the unexpected, especially where your plans rely on others.

Remember to include plenty of down time; it's what keeps your sanity.

Thanks also to Charles McDonald for the suggestion to do this post!!!

Have a great week all!!!!

Brad Snyder - "The 45 Day Listing REALTOR"
www.45DayListings.com