Time blocking is a productivity method that calls for you to schedule every minute of your workday. It’s a great technique for real estate agents because it:
- Encourages you to spend your time on the activities that have the most impact
- Enables you to use every working hour of the day productively
- Gives you a clear understanding of how you spend your time so that you’re able to make improvements
In this article, we’ll explain how to successfully adopt this time management method and utilize a real estate virtual assistant to help.
Use This Time Blocking Template for Real Estate Agents
To effectively time-block your schedule, plan every minute of your workday, including routine tasks like driving to properties and having lunch. Understanding what you should be doing at all times helps you stay focused on high-impact activities rather than reacting to every distraction.
Here’s an example of a time-blocked calendar of a real estate agent:
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Though each day is busy, you don’t need to be overly detailed. As you can see, many of the blocks are vague, such as “Follow-Up with Potential Buyers” and “Document Preparation.” There are many small tasks within those blocks; however, instead of adding every activity to your calendar, group similar ones together to give yourself the flexibility to catch up on different areas of your business.
Time Blocking Steps for Real Estate Agents
Plan Your Client and Vendor Activities
As a real estate professional, your top priority is serving your clients. Thus, meetings with them and the vendors who are working on their properties should be the first activities you add to your calendar.
Aim to confirm all meetings roughly a week ahead, allowing you to allocate the rest of your day effectively. This may be challenging, as some clients request meetings at unpredictable times. Nonetheless, emphasize to them that you work with many clients, and scheduling a few days in advance helps you prepare thoroughly to support each one.
Identify Your Business Development Priorities
Once you’ve scheduled most of your client and vendor activities, you should identify and prioritize your business development tasks. Blocking time on your calendar to focus on these tasks helps you attract more clients by holding you accountable for working on strategic growth activities that might otherwise be delayed.
Begin by listing all the projects you’d like to tackle, from small tasks like following up with Zillow leads to larger ones like redesigning your website. Then, estimate the shortest time needed to make meaningful progress on each and the total time you expect each will require.
Thinking about the minimum amount of time you need to make progress makes it easier to find open spots on your calendar, while estimating the maximum amount of time lets you know how many blocks you need to reserve for each activity.
Here’s an example of what your list might look like:
- Following up with Zillow leads - 10 minutes / 1 hour
- Creating Facebook ads - 30 minutes / 1.5 hours
- Creating a new brochure - 20 minutes / 45 minutes
- Planning a community event - 30 minutes / 6 hours
- Launching an email campaign - 20 minutes / 2 hours
Remember that the times you set aside for these projects are flexible. If a client wants to meet during a time you had reserved for real estate marketing activities, give them that time. However, to succeed, you must make sure your business development projects still get completed.
Continuously Improve Your Time-Blocking Strategies
Time blocking can be a powerful tool for real estate agents, but it takes time to build momentum.
If you’ve never tracked your time before, you’ll likely struggle to estimate how long tasks take. This will cause many of your blocks to be inaccurate, making it difficult for you to manage your time effectively.
There are two ways to become better at estimating how long projects take:
- Use a time-tracking tool, such as Toggl, to track how long each task takes you to complete each day.
- Whenever a task doesn’t take as long as you thought it would, note how far you were off.
Your time blocking will improve with practice.
While you’re working to become better at estimation, don’t let small gaps in your time go to waste. Here are some tasks you can easily complete while you’re waiting for your next meeting or activity:
- Calling or sending an email to a couple of contacts that you haven’t spoken to in a few months
- Creating a few social media posts
- Reaching out to leads that just came in
- Catching up on emails
Over time, you’ll become better at creating time blocks and be able to spend your entire day on high-impact activities.
Delegate Calendar Management to Your Assistant
Though time blocking is a highly effective way to manage productivity, many real estate agents struggle to use it consistently because organizing all of their responsibilities can be time-consuming.
A real estate virtual assistant can solve this issue by blocking your calendar for you by time. Here’s how:
- Give them a list of people you want to meet with or call and have them work your prospecting plan. They can schedule those meetings on your behalf or block time off from your schedule if you’d prefer to schedule them yourself.
- Give them a list of activities you’d like to work on throughout the week (e.g., Marketing, contract work, following up with leads, reaching out to old contacts, etc.).
- Give them your schedule preferences. For example, you may prefer to work on business development and admin in the mornings and have all of your calls/meetings in the afternoons. Alternatively, you may need an hour in the afternoon to pick up your kids from school.
They’ll use all that information to organize your calendar efficiently. They can also send you reminders about upcoming meetings and to-dos.
A VA can also add more time to your day by tackling tasks, including:
- Formatting documents
- Creating templated marketing materials
- Updating listings
- Keeping your contacts organized and up-to-date
Plus a variety of other admin, transaction, and marketing support tasks.
Learn more about Prialto's real estate virtual assistants and how they can help you grow your business!