Productivity Tips For Real Estate Investors
Make no mistake; being a real estate investor is a full-time job, and a difficult one, at that. Like many business endeavors, how successful it will be is contingent on how much work is put into it. If you’re like most real estate investors, chances are that burden falls squarely on your shoulders.
In a lot of ways, running your own business is both invigorating and rewarding in its own right. Still, you need to be successful at what you do, and that means managing your time appropriately, prioritizing tasks, and in general being productive. It’s easy to get overwhelmed amidst the flurry of activity and details that need attention in order to realize a return on your investment, so how can you manage this?
Whether or not your business is successful often comes down to the question of, how can you be productive without losing your mind or your focus?
Define your work.
In so many words, “What are you doing today, and why?” This sounds simple, but we’ve talked about S.M.A.R.T. goals before and this is the first step. In real estate, it’s always important to understand your overall objective, but you also need to break that larger goal down into daily tasks.
Breaking down your workload into manageable tasks is crucial for getting just about anything done under normal circumstances, but as you ascertain the “what,” be sure to be cognizant of the “why.” What needs to be done today? What needs to be done tomorrow, or this week? Most importantly, why?
Prioritize.
Focus on what’s important. Now that you’ve defined what exactly you need to accomplish, this is an extension of the “why.” Come up with what needs to happen in order to move towards completing your overall objective.
Further, that overall objective should be broken down into long-term goals, and from these goals you will derive your daily tasks. How are these tasks in line with your overall objective, and is the timeline efficient? This brings us to our next point:
Order your operations.
“When” is just as important as “what” and “why.” For example, it makes little sense to worry about finding an appraiser before you’ve renovated your property and preparing to list it.
When you break down your objective into smaller goals and daily tasks, ensure that your timeline makes sense. Some things have to be done before others, and some tasks can be made a lot harder without taking care of prerequisites beforehand.
Carve out time for emails and social media networking…
…but stick to that allotted amount of time! Obviously, if something is important and time-sensitive, address it right away. Otherwise, getting bogged down in endless email replies and social media responses throughout the day can actually hamper your productivity.
In this day and age, there’s no excuse to let 24 hours pass without responding to something. We tend to equate that rapid-fire mentality with the idea that responding to each query as it comes in is the same thing as being productive when in reality it can actually make you less productive.
If you keep returning to your phone or inbox to address something and interrupt current tasks or work, whatever you’re working on suffers from your interrupted attention. It’s best to allot one or two time blocks in the day to respond to the majority of messages you receive – but stick to it, otherwise it doesn’t work.
Keep distractions to a minimum.
This is part of why we suggest allocating specific blocks of time for social media and email responses, because even if they don’t interrupt anything else, they can be distractions, which our brains normally welcome.
It’s easy to say, “I’d better deal with this,” but do you really need to? Be aware of how your brain craves distraction as it would a most potent drug (which is more fact than exaggeration, by the way). If you need to be logged into social media, stay on your business page and not your profile. Ignore notifications, and if you can’t, just turn them off.
There’s no reason to have a television playing in the background of your office, nor is there any reason to have your phone able to ring while you’re reading through a contract with your attorney. Chances are, you can call back or catch up on the news later. Put your focus where it needs to be at the moment.
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– Get It Right Solutions