Get More Done with These Time Management Tips

As a real estate agent, you’re your own boss. This sounds wonderful, but you also have to play the role of the boss when holding yourself accountable. You can lose track of projects, client relationships, and listings when you don’t practice excellent real estate agent time management strategies.

Top real estate agents all have one thing in common: time management skills. Becoming a real estate agent will require you to develop great habits that keep you progressing through your career. Below is actionable, real estate agent time management advice that you can apply to your career right now.

Setting Realistic Goals

Goal setting will help you visualize what needs to get done. What people don’t realize is that the majority of goal setting is done wrong. You might have an idea of what you want to accomplish, but if it just remains an idea, you’ll never accomplish it.

To practice efficient real estate agent time management, you should set realistic, tangible goals. The best way to do this is, to be honest with yourself and your capabilities of completing a task. Writing “becoming a successful real estate agent” is great for dreams, but don’t expect to reach this goal without simple action steps.

When you have a big project, break it down into as many small goals as possible. Doing so will help you identify every action item you need to complete to meet your goal.

Prioritize Work

You could knock a bunch of items off your to-do list, but still, get nothing done. Productive procrastination is the phenomenon of working on simple, mundane tasks to avoid the bigger, more daunting task. It’s a symptom of not having a clear action plan for tackling the bigger projects.

Prioritizing your work will help you alleviate those busy days with low results. According to the 80/20 rule, 20% of your projects will produce 80% of the results you’re looking for. Therefore, focusing on the 80% of projects that produce 20% of the result, will be using your time unwisely.

Breaking down the bigger projects into smaller steps will help you not feel so intimidated in getting those priority tasks done. This is efficient real estate agent time management.

Delegate Tasks and Responsibilities

We like to think we can do everything, but the truth is: we can’t. Sometimes we have to ask for help - and that’s okay!

Taking on more work than you can handle is a sign that your brand is growing. That means it’s time to grow your team. There’s plenty of benefits in delegating responsibilities to another person. When your business grows, you’ll have more real estate jobs for people who could use the extra work. This will grow your network and help you take on more clients.

Delegating will help you manage your time better by setting your schedule free from the confines of repetitive tasks. This means you can focus on the important work.

Set Deadlines

Managing your time and beating procrastination is all about creating clear objectives. Making a list of the action steps you need to complete in order to finish a project is just as important as setting deadlines. When you give yourself deadlines, you create a timeframe for when a project must be completed.

This will keep you from lallygagging.

People with clear deadlines will have more drive to finish their tasks within the timeframe. This is because they have a clear objective to follow. By removing any room for procrastination, you will be able to finish any project you start - in a timely manner.

Avoid Multitasking

Distracted working is inefficient. Avoid multitasking when you can, because the added stimulus will distract you from the priority tasks. According to the American Psychological Association, multitasking reportedly decreases productivity by 40%.

Sending emails to clients, while showing off a property to another client, might sound like efficiency, but you’re actually hindering yourself by doing this. Therefore, you should focus on one thing at a time. You can fully immerse yourself in the work and produce a higher quality result than you would when you’re multitasking.

Keep Contacts

One of the best real estate agent time management strategies is keeping a Rolodex of your contacts. Whether it's a spreadsheet of names and phone numbers or a fully functional contact management system, you should always keep your contacts nearby.

This will decrease the amount of time you take searching through your phone or a piece of paper, that you lost long ago. Having your contacts organized and well-managed will also keep you from procrastinating from reaching out to leads.

Don’t Let Fears Help You Procrastinate

One of the reasons why real estate professionals procrastinate is because we fear failure. What’s even more confusing is that we often subconsciously lie to ourselves about why we procrastinate. Often times we will use the excuse “now’s not the best time” or “I’ll do this tomorrow,” when we are avoiding the possibility of failing.

If the task is a priority, then you should plan on doing it immediately.

You can overcome this fear by accepting the fact that we all fail at some point. This is okay because failure is a natural part to becoming a successful real estate agent. Overcoming this fear becomes easier the more often you expose yourself to failure.

Batch Your Work

Batching your work is a quick way to optimize your work schedule. Real estate agent time management is easier when you're creating a schedule to focus on one project. This will keep you in the same mindset as you complete your project. One of the reasons why we fall off our productive workflow is because we have to shift gears from one project to another.

For example, you could switch from sending emails to showing property and then back to sending emails. Batching your work in timeframes throughout the day will optimize where you allocate your time. For example, you can reserve the morning for showing property and the afternoon for sending emails.

Reward Yourself

Don’t forget to reward yourself for completing projects. This form of positive reinforcement will encourage you to work towards rewards. Whether it's sleeping in a little the next day or enjoying a few hours at the spa, giving yourself a treat is a great way to show self-appreciation.

Moreover, you should schedule time for play. This can be grabbing lunch with a friend or decompressing with a walk through a park. Scheduling time to relax and not think about work is important to stay productive. Without play, you’ll burn out and grow resentment for your own career.

Final Thoughts on These Time Mangement Tips for Real Estate Agents

Scheduling, prioritizing, and creating a list of what needs to be done might seem like simple things to do, but they go a long way in boosting your productivity. Since you’re your own boss, you have to act like a boss. By managing your time wisely, you won’t let yourself slip.

What’s a simple real estate agent time management tip that’s helped you finish your work?

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