Real Estate Time Management Strategies

Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. -M. Scott Peck

This blog devotes most of our content to tips and strategies for helping real estate agents maximize their production and revenue. As the home to many of the country’s top-producing agents, Vulcan7 is widely regarded as the leader in lead generation technology and support.

But here’s the thing: no matter how good the tools are, if you don’t manage your time effectively, those tools will not be put to their best use. Consider this:

Research by employment site Zippia reveals that 82% of individuals need an effective system for managing their time, leading to 51% of their workday being allocated to less valuable activities.

If you’re a real estate agent who feels you are not making the best use of your time, this blog post is for you. We will share real estate time management strategies from the top-producing agents in the business.

So, let’s get started on time management for real estate agents.

START EARLY

Own the morning.

If you’re not a morning person, perhaps you should recalibrate your lifestyle to become one. Considerable research supports the health (and business) benefits of creating a morning routine:

• Start waking earlier than usual, and don’t hit the snooze button. There is something special about the quiet of the early morning hours.
• Create morning rituals that help you center yourself and relax for the day ahead. These can include reading spiritual or self-help books, meditating, or just sitting quietly to gather your thoughts.

Check out our blog on OWNING THE MORNING for more tips.

Plan ahead.

Most business professionals consider Friday afternoons their time to unwind from the previous week. But before you go into full unwind mode, take a few minutes to reflect on the week you just completed, perhaps in a journal. But, more important, write down your goals and priorities for the following week so you can hit the ground running on Monday morning.

FOCUS ON YOUR HEALTH

It’s good business to take good care of yourself.

Like any business endeavor, real estate can be demanding and stressful. That’s why it’s imperative to be conscious of your physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being. In our post, HEALTHY BODY, HEALTHY MIND, HEALTHY BUSINESS, we share tips on how a healthy lifestyle translates to a healthy ROI. Here are a few of the tips:

• Build an exercise routine: The U.S. Department of Health suggests that you maintain a schedule of moderate physical activity for 150 minutes a week.
• Create a sleep routine: Regardless of how many hours you sleep each night, try to stick to a schedule of when you go to bed and when you rise each day.
• Practice mindfulness: Research supports a daily mindfulness practice to reduce stress and keep your mind sharp. Whether it’s meditation, repeating affirmations, or an early morning walk, it helps to take time to quiet your mind.

PRIORITIZE YOUR TASKS

Avoid procrastination.

Mark Twain once said, “If it’s your job to eat the frog, eat it first thing in the morning.” This means to do the most difficult or your least favorite tasks first and get them over it so you don’t spend the day dreading them.

Top-producing agents take this lesson to heart by starting each day with a commitment to phone prospecting. They might start the morning by role-playing with one or more partners to prepare them for the day ahead. But, in nearly all cases, they are ready to power up Vulcan7 and start calling the new expired leads in their database.

Here are a few other task-related real estate time management strategies:

• Task Batch: It’s important to remember a simple reality-there is no such thing as multi-tasking. Our brains are not designed to efficiently and effectively move between multiple tasks. Research shows that it takes about 23 minutes to return to a task once interrupted. Task batching suggest that we group similar tasks together-then complete them consecutively. This process can minimize interruptions and keep your mind focused.
• Schedule measurable work. When plotting your week, schedule the chores that bring immediate results. Nothing feels better than checking items off our lists, so slate a few items you are confident you can complete in the day, whether it’s follow-up notes to prospects or calling a handful of FSBOs to schedule appointments.

OUTSOURCE CERTAIN TASKS

Invest in your success.

Let’s say, for example, that you want to maintain a blog (a good personal branding strategy). But it takes you forever to research, draft, and edit every post. You should hire a freelance writer to handle this task. Instead of looking at this as an expense, consider it an investment in your business that allows you to focus on what you do best: sell. You might also consider hiring a part-time administrative assistant to handle time-consuming tasks that normally pull you away from selling.

MINIMIZE THE OBVIOUS DISTRACTIONS

Manage your smartphone.

Our smartphones may be our greatest hindrance to productivity and success. There are numerous ways to reconfigure your smartphone to disable distractions, neutralize inefficiencies, and enhance productivity.

ELIMINATE UNNECESSARY MEETINGS

Or run more effective meetings.

When it comes to time management for real estate agents who work in teams, always be conscious of how much time you spend in meetings. Studies show that the average businessperson can spend as many as 23 hours each week in meetings. Take a good, hard look at every meeting on your calendar. Cancel those you believe have little value. If, after several weeks, you find that you miss what was covered in those meetings, re-instate them. But you’ll probably realize that whatever was covered in those meetings can be handled with a quick phone call or email.

CONSIDER THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE 

It’s a proven time management hack.

Created in the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo, the Pomodoro technique uses an old-fashioned kitchen timer to break down work in intervals of 25-minute segments. Each segment (known as a Pomodoro) is followed by a 5-minute break. The idea is simple: you focus as much as possible on a task for 25 minutes, then walk away for five minutes to clear your head.

Check out our post on HOW TO HOLD YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE WITH THIS TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGY for more tips on using the Pomodoro Technique.

THE VULCAN7 TIME MANAGEMENT ADVANTAGE

Save time and make more money.

We would be remiss if we didn’t suggest this real estate time management tip to transform your business… and life: INVEST IN VULCAN7’s REAL ESTATE LEAD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY.

Using advanced technology, Vulcan7 has transformed real estate prospecting and lead generation. Here are three ways Vulcan7’s technology can help you minimize your prospecting time and maximize your production… and revenue:

1. Our INDUSTRY-LEADING REAL ESTATE LEADS are delivered to your desktop every morning so that you can start the day with the most reliable lead generation data.
2. Vulcan7’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform keeps you on task with prospecting and lead follow-up efforts. To learn more about the importance of CRM, check out our blog post, THE VALUE OF A REAL ESTATE CRM SYSTEM.
3. Vulcan7’s BEST-IN-CLASS DIALER maximizes your efficiency by helping you to make four times as many calls per session as you would by manually dialing.

You owe it to yourself to learn how Vulcan7 can help you minimize your prospecting time while maximizing your profits. CONTACT US HERE.

Doug Spak

Doug Spak has over four decades of experience as an advertising copywriter, agency creative director, blogger, and content creator. He joined Vulcan7 as a Content Specialist in 2016. In addition to ongoing website copy refreshes, Doug has produced over 300 blog posts while developing content for Vulcan7’s social media platforms.