Productivity Hacks for Real Estate Professionals
Productivity: The phrase “life hack” was coined in 2004 by a famous tech journalist Danny O’Brien to explain the “productive shortcuts” IT professionals use to get work done.
The term slowly became the new hot buzzword in town, and a year later, the American Dialect Society (ADS) ranked it the second most useful term of 2005 (just after the word podcast). You probably have used a ‘life hack,’ but do you know exactly what the term means?
A life hack is a simple and clever tip, trick, technique, or shortcut for accomplishing familiar tasks easily and efficiently.
Since real estate agents are ever busy—often juggling between multiple tasks, productivity hacks can make a huge difference in their day-to-day lives. If you’re a realtor, these productivity hacks will help you accomplish more, with less effort.
1. Stay Positive
Pessimism is a deadly productivity killer.
Working on your business is harder when you’re fighting negative feelings, so invest your time in activities that help you stay happy and positive. Here are some activities that can boost your morale and help you to stay positive.
- Listen to a real estate podcast
- Watch a thrilling TV show
- Try yoga or workout with friends
- Set up video calls with your loved ones
- Take breaks by walking or cycling
If you have a team, make sure to create a working environment that will foster your employees’ development. Your positive actions combined with positive thinking will result in success.
2. Leverage Technology
Not many things can streamline an agent’s workflow better than real estate tools. From your CRM to transaction management software to mobile apps, real estate tools should be your best friend if you want to stay productive and competitive.
Take transaction coordinator software, for example. These programs are designed to automate your time-consuming processes so you can close more deals.
A robust transaction coordinator software can help customize your system so your workflow will only contain the tasks and documents your agents need. It will also display everything on one page so your agents can easily see the status of each transaction and know which contracts are incomplete or missing important documents.
Another important tool to have in your arsenal is a digital signature solution, like DocuSign. Such solutions not only save you time but also store your files in secure cloud storage, making the files accessible from anywhere.
3. Set Daily Goals
Quite often, we fail to reach our goals because we haven’t defined them clearly. But when you have clear goals in mind, you’ll know where to start, what to do, and at what time. This way, you’ll also be able to measure the results and account for the failures.
Start every morning with a list of the things you wish to accomplish by the day’s end. Make sure your daily goals are:
- Realistic
- Time-specific
- Actionable
- Measurable
Also, it’s important to ensure at least one of your goals is marketing-focused. Think of one actionable activity you can do each day to grow your list of prospective clients. For example, cold calling 10 potential buyers/investors.
4. Ditch Multitasking
It doesn’t work!
Multitasking can make you seem like a highly motivated real estate guy but doing a million things at once will likely result in errors. According to a recent Lisa Quest study, multitasking can reduce productivity by as much as 40%. That’s because as you switch between multiple tasks, it takes your brain time to process and refocus.
Got some other handy productivity hacks for real estate agents? Share with us in the comments section below.
