Meeting with my real estate clients in the past few months I have been impressed with the amount more satisfaction and work output the vast majority of them are now achieving compared to what they previously were doing. They are also doing this either in the same, or in some cases, significantly less time.

When we discuss this issue, most are well aware that what they are now doing they have known for many years was important, but they had never developed the habit of committing to and prioritising their workload on a regular basis.

As real estate agency owner, salesperson, property manager, or administrator it is very easy to go in to work each day and keep “busy”. In fact, I regularly see that it is almost like a competition amongst some people! I am sure you have all had the conversation when you have said you had a bit on and a colleague has told you how much “busier” they are.

I believe we should all change our focus to being “productive” rather than “busy” and our lives would be much more enjoyable, and profitable. If we could all achieve the results we did last year in 10 hours a week wouldn’t our lives be much more enjoyable? I admit, I have not got there yet, but I am certainly working towards it! In fact, one of my most common sayings is “any idiot can be busy, what have you achieved today?” A hamster on a spinning wheel is very “busy”, but I can assure you they are not getting anywhere. Unfortunately, I see the same with many people who tell me how busy they are, and that is why they tell me they don’t have any time for personal, or business, development.

What are Some Simple Ways to Massively Improve Productivity?

If you don’t already, developing the simple habit of allocating 10 minutes at the end of each day (or first thing in the morning if you are not a good evening person) to make a list of your (maximum) six most IMPORTANT things you need to do for the day, prioritising these, and allocating the timeframe in your diary to complete these tasks I am sure would mean you would achieve more, be effective in doing so and also enjoy your work far more.

Secondly, before you commence any work, take the time to think to yourself “is this important work, or am I just keeping busy?” If it is genuinely important go one step further and ask, “Should I be doing this job?” Particularly if you are a real estate agency principal, a high performing salesperson, or a senior property manager, there are plenty of jobs to do which are important, but are they jobs you should be doing personally?

Obvious examples might be a principal going to get mail, or a high performing salesperson doing letter box drops. There are also some less obvious ones. For myself personally, while I like writing generally, I never liked writing ads. For this reason, I was slow. Even though it was important to write good ads, and I could write good ads, I didn’t. The reason was I had assistants and associates who were just as good at it, were on a lower hourly rate, and who did it more quickly. Me doing these ads myself would have been very unproductive use of my time for any of these three reasons. Every person will have their own way to decide what they should and should not be doing, I am a big believer of developing a “To don’t list” of activities you currently do, that you know someone else would do more effectively than you.

As always if you have taken the time to read this and have any comments, I would love to hear them!