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3 Ways to Reclaim Your Time and Sell More Houses

Written by Posted On Monday, 29 October 2018 07:12
3 Ways to Reclaim Your Time and Sell More Houses

How often do you get to the end of the day and wonder where did the time go? You know you were busy all day, yet nothing on your ever-growing to-do list is checked off. Here are three ways to reclaim your time so you can get more done.

 

Practice Self-Care

Start your day off with a mini-win. A win can be anything from making your bed, doing a work out, making a healthy breakfast or even just waking up 15 minutes earlier than normal. When you start off your day with a win, you establish a mental pattern of success. You will feel more confident as the day goes on and you will make the most of your time at work.

 

By taking care of ourselves, we set ourselves up to make the most of our time. Among the essential habits that time-management expert Laura Vanderkam describes in her book What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast are: drinking a glass of water, meditating, and exercising.

 

Lynn Rossy, founder of the Mindfulness Practice Center at the University of Missouri, notes that while we can’t add more time to the day, we can add more energy through mini-breaks for mindful meditation. These mini-breaks ultimately save time by restoring our energy, increasing our concentration, and preventing mindless mistakes.

 

In The Sleep Revolution, Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, suggests that having a good day starts with getting enough sleep the night before. Poor sleep habits rob us of time by depleting our ability to concentrate and remember, lowering our motivation and increasing our risk of depression, and compromising our immune systems, leaving us more vulnerable to diseases from the common cold to cancer.

 

Reduce Interruptions

The Eisenhower Principle, named after former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower, distinguishes urgent problems from important problems. According to the principle, urgent problems are never important, and important problems are never urgent. Yet many of us spend much of our time responding to “urgent” issues that interrupt the time we should be spending on important ones. We can reclaim our time by intentionally disconnecting from the “urgent” pipelines: email and phone.

 

In his book The 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferris recommends scheduling blocks of time to address email, texts, and phone messages. Only respond to your messages during those times. You can manage others’ expectations for a quick response by setting up automatic replies and voicemail messages that let people know when you will get back to them.

 

Organize Information

Another big time waster is tracking down the documents we need to complete a task. Whether because we don’t have a filing system or our system has become so byzantine that it has become essentially useless, we spend our time finding where documents are stored or figuring out which version of the document is correct, rather than getting the task done. A well-designed document management system can help us reclaim our time by creating a clear path to the information we need.

 

The GTD system created by David Allen uses folders to organize information by the day it is needed. Each day of the month gets a folder, and each month gets a folder, for a total of 43 folders. Whenever a piece of paper crosses your desk, you either deal with it immediately or you file it in the day or month when you will take action. You always have the information you need---whether it’s a major contract for work or concert tickets for your favorite band---right at your fingertips.

 

Much of the information we deal with each day is digital. A plethora of cloud-based systems are available to effectively manage digital documents. These systems allow you and your team members to access information from anywhere while keeping documents secure and providing version control.

 

Final Thoughts

As for that evergrowing to-do list, stop letting it grow. Don’t take it from me, take it from one of the most financially successful people in the world; Warren Buffett. When he was asked what the secret to success was, he responded with “learn how to say no.” If you don’t narrow down your list to high priority tasks, you will never accomplish your most important goals.

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Carol Evenson

Carol is a home renovation specialist with a background in organization and sales. She assists realtors with business management and growth.

https://twitter.com/cmill_com

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