We can’t manage time; we can only manage ourselves.
Time management is a hot topic for real estate professionals and teams, but you have to understand that you can’t manage time! Each day has 24 hours in it. If you can learn how to shut down the distractions and learn to focus, you will become more disciplined with your time and get more done in a day. In fact, I live by the Kaizen Principle: “learning to make small incremental improvements in each area of your business and life each day.”
When we realize that time management is a myth, it pushes us to really try our best to manage ourselves instead. Identify the time of the day when you can focus on your most important business tasks and work on your strategies—accomplish what you set out to do. Have you heard the phrase, “Out of sight out of mind.”? Well, the opposite is true too, “If it’s in sight, it’s in your mind.” Take care of distracting environments so your mind is clear. This allows you the chance to build a priority plan and prioritize it ruthlessly because 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the effort made to get the results—don’t be distracted by your desk so you can focus on the right things.
Time management expert Peter Drucker says, doing the right thing is more important than doing things right. Activity breeds productivity and you should focus on effectiveness and efficiency. Now to be efficient, you need to tame your time thieves. Now that your desk is clean, limit television, Facebook, unnecessary chats and busywork—don’t let those thieves take away your precious time. Just say no and focus on your money-making activities.
To complete and prioritize your team’s activities, use your CRM to manage your clients, your follow-up and your to-do list. I recommend an electronic to-do list to prioritize things so you can reach your goals and make sure nothing drops through the cracks! You can even (and you should) do the same thing with your personal life. When you learn to say no to seemingly important distractions during work, you can get your needed to-dos out of the way first so when it’s family time, you can say no to work obligations—your family deserves it. Additionally, be sure to reward yourself when you hit your milestones—keep yourself engaged to move forward.
The last thing that I want to talk about is my secret to success: Observe and emulate a top agent in your office. Go and spend time with someone that has been in your same position, like a coach, and copy everything they do. See how they interact with clients, see their daily success habits, see how they get agreements signed… find people who are better than you and be a student of the business.
Verl Workman is the founder and CEO of Workman Success Systems (385-282-7112), an international speaking, consulting and coaching company that specializes in performance coaching and building successful power agents and teams. Contact him at Verl@WorkmanSuccessSystems.com. For more information, please visit www.workmansuccesssystems.com.
