Realtors NEVER run out of things to do. There are tasks and tasks for days! We spend a lot of time trying to come up with ideal days, task batches, planners, auto-schedulers, outsourcing and countless other strategies to make our work manageable. BUT, when’s the last time you stopped and thought about how often you should be doing each of the tasks in your business. Could it be we are overwhelmed with trying to keep up because we are quite literally doing some things too much? What about those tasks you avoid like the plague? You may be encouraged to hear you don’t need to do them as often as you thought. Join us this week as we get into the exact timing of how often you should be doing the different tasks in your business.

The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.

0:01
Maybe you need to talk to your workbench salesman. I don’t know. If you’re wondering, Where’s my one hour time block of cold calling, it’s not in there.

0:10
No. And if we had no social media, I’d probably have a lot more time to do that. That’s also true. Or not here to lie to you,

0:20
right? These are the things I do. And then you have more time to do the things you suck. Yeah, it’s ridiculous to assume you had no life duties that came up during the course of the day.

0:36
Hi, y’all. Welcome to hustle humbly. It’s Alyssa and Katie. And we are two top producing realtors in the Baton Rouge market.

0:42
We work for two different companies where we should be competitors. But we have chosen community over competition. The goal of our podcasts is to encourage you to find your own way in business to stop comparing yourself and start embracing your strengths. Hi, Alyssa. Hey, Katie. Wow, it is episode 188. We were not as prepared as we thought we were. We sat down and J buckled us into the roller coaster. And we didn’t have our notebook or her pin notes.

1:11
I think we’re ready now.

1:12
Okay, I hope so. Because we’re going to talk about what to do and when to do it.

1:17
Okay, I think we my little disclaimer for myself, I for all you Enneagram threes out there, this isn’t like a should episode, we don’t want to shit on you or make you feel like you should have to do all these things. No, but I do think they’re important. And it helps clean out the clutter of a lot of things like these are a pretty necessary thing.

1:39
Okay, I will, I will give you the background that I made this real estate task frequency list, okay, it goes along with tube can look at it. Right? It’s beautiful. It goes along with time management for agents, of course that I made, it’s no longer available on its own, but at some times it will be available as a bonus to database. Or maybe when this episode comes out if you’re wanting to get your hands on the time management course will let that be available with database for that a couple of weeks or something I think good. Yeah. So. But the point is, in order to get a grip on your time, as an agent, you have to figure out what tasks are you doing? And how often do you need to do them? I mean, the prop. Let’s take the perfect example. When I think about this is how many touches do they tell you to do to your database?

2:32
Gosh, anywhere from like 36 to 52 times a year. Yeah, yeah.

2:36
If you’re touching the people that many times think about all the time you’re spending on that so much time, but you don’t. And that’s 33 I mean, like, once a week, yeah, how often are too much, too much. So we’re gonna talk about maybe, instead of telling you what you should do, we’re gonna give you permission to maybe do less right or change around what you’re doing or like

2:59
the checklists because it shows the things. It’s a realistic things that people do most days without meaning to, right. It’s just part of our day as a working full time realtor, right? So I did

3:13
with a coach, hey, back in the day, I did like a quick little mini call, like almost like a pre Do you want to work together? thing, we did not end up working together. And it wasn’t a real estate coach, it was just a business coach. Okay, but she made me do the three day time audit. And basically, though, for three days from awake until asleep, you write down what you do every 15 minutes. So what did you do in this 15 minute block through the whole day? Okay, a time audit time audit. Cool. So it kind of gives you this overview of like, what’s happening on three work days. I didn’t do it on the weekend. But you know, three workdays, what are you actually doing? So it was very eye opening? And then of course, you’re kind of on your best behavior, right? Yeah, someone’s recording you. You’re not going to be like, I just scrolled Instagram for an hour. And I don’t know, I was supposed to be making dinner. Like, right, but at the same time, it kind of helped. Like, see, I was spending a lot more time traveling to appointments than I was really putting in my brain as travel time and my schedule. Okay. Do you know like, yeah, anyway, that was sort of the beginning of me thinking about what am I doing? Like, how often am I doing it? Do I need to do it less? Do I need to do a more? I mean, I think we all automatically focus on when we need to do more.

4:36
It’s also easy like Time flies by and you’re like, I haven’t even done anything today. Right? And now it’s time to go home.

4:44
Think about how many days at the end you’re like what did I even do? I feel like I’m either on one end of the spectrum and the other What did I even do or man look at all the stuff I did today? Right? But I mean we have to see our work life and as a whole it It can’t be judged on one day. Correct. Maybe you could judge the week or the month?

5:05
I think that’s a very good point. Because none of our days look the same. No. And no matter how many times I have tried to listen to the motivational speakers that say to color code, your calendar and time blocking pink, the time that you’re making calls are this, like, it’s not realistic for my business, because every day is different. I’m accommodating inspection schedules, and I’m accommodating when a house comes on the market, and I have to go show it and I’m accommodating with the kids have that week. Yeah, I can’t say every Thursday, this is what I do. Right? Well, I guess I kind of do with the podcasts. Well,

5:38
that’s a great example, though. You decided to say, I’m going to take Thursday, and I’m going to do this thing it could ever be Thursday, it could have been an office day. But but you hold fast to it because other people are depending on

5:51
you to show up? Well, a really good example is okay, so Thursdays, I do not show houses or have appointments. It’s my podcast day, right? It works 95% of the time. Sure. But I had an inspection that I needed to schedule this week. And he could either do late in the day, Wednesday, or Thursday. Okay. And I thought, I mean, I’m just gonna have to find someone to get the kids because I am not available Thursday, right. And that’s what I

6:18
did. I don’t know who says this. And it’s more than one person. But it’s like, if it’s not in your calendar, it doesn’t exist. So podcast day is in your calendar, it exists. It’s the same thing, if you want to have an off day, or an office day or anything, like if I had my kids had something at school that I wanted to go to, but I didn’t have to go to and I put it in my calendar, and then someone wants to do an inspection or showing I’m like, sorry, I have an appointment at that time, right? It’s already booked. So it’s kind of like, you gotta you got to put those things in the calendar, you gotta block them off in order for them to get done. So as we go through the list, I think part of it is I would, you know, not everyone’s going to do all the same activities in their business. No, maybe you like to meet with your title person every other week, because y’all are doing some type of accountability together, or working on CO marketing. Or maybe you and your lender go to like certain events together. Right? At maybe you need to talk to your park bench salesman. I don’t know what you’re doing. Like, maybe so not everyone’s going to do the same things. So you have to kind of go through the list and decide which ones are you going to do? Yeah. And how often are you going to do? Okay, but I want you to tell me, what are some things that you do daily that you feel like, are required? of you of

7:39
myself in your business? There are a few things I do every day. And yes, intentionally, but also, it’s just what I do. So it’s not like I like the flow. Yes. So one of the things I do is check out the Facebook birthdays.

7:53
Okay, right, because that’s how you’re that’s how I keep getting rid of the people.

7:57
Again, to make the relationships I have left more intentional. Okay, I like that. I see whose birthday it is. And I asked myself, Do I know you? Yeah. If I don’t I delete you. If you do. And if I do know you, I just send you a happy birthday message. And now Facebook knows that we know each other and perfect example. One Facebook birthday popped up and I was like, I sold them their house. And I have to admit, they weren’t someone I really knew before. Okay. And we looked at one, and then it was the one. So I saw these people like once every time I saw them when I showed them the house and we’re like, wow, at the home inspection, right? And at the closing, okay, I didn’t know them before. I friended them on Facebook after obviously, but then I just You didn’t remember them at all. Really? I mean, they’re in my database. Yeah. Okay. She makes so after I wrote Happy birthday, I start seeing her stuff like the next few days you’re connected. Turns out, she makes incredible, like designer cakes. Oh, wow. Things that you see on TV. Okay. And I’m just amazed. She is now making my kid’s birthday cake for Saturday. I love it. And I’m just like, I’m so glad that I started seeing her stuff, right? Because anyway, deepening that relationship. Yes. And so the Facebook birthdays are important to me because I want to make sure I treat my Facebook as kind of like a secondary database. Right. So to me it is kind of like database work. Making sure. As you look at each name I asked myself, do these people need to be in my database? Do I have their contact information? Okay, love it. Of course email clean out. I try to do it. The first thing I’m available, okay. Okay. example This morning Haven had her program at school, right? We had to be at school very early. The program didn’t end till 10 The first time I checked my email today was at 1015 Yeah, it was fine. No one died. They were all Yeah, everyone was fine. Everyone was fine, right? So I don’t make it like I have to get up and check my email immediately. It’s like, oh, but I do like it to be the first moment. I have a moment. That’s what I do, because that’s where the important things are that need to be addressed. Right. And I try to shut that down before I re pick up my kids.

10:17
So you have two definite yes, in a day. I

10:21
and probably some in between, but definitely an opener in a close, right.

10:24
Especially on a day you’re heavily scheduled. Yeah, just in the beginning and then at the end, right. Okay. What else daily? I think that

10:35
it might go to weekly at this point, because every day I can tell you I do those two things. Okay. Then it kind of goes to like every Monday. My office has a Monday morning meeting. Yeah, it is my goal to be at the Monday morning meeting and then maybe to work at my desk until lunch. Okay. That’s my Monday, Wednesday is our sales meeting. Okay, it’s nice to be at the office and then work. I feel like we’re doing

10:59
boulder like, you know, when Anna teaches, I think more than that, you know, time management tips. It’s like the boulders and then the big rocks and then the pebbles. Like you start with your boulders. Okay, we’re like, Okay, well, I know on Thursday, I’m going to record a podcast. I know one Monday I want to go to sales meeting. I didn’t when Wednesday I’m going to do or whatever. Yeah. So it’s like, put all these big things in and then you start filling in everything out. Right.

11:22
I would say Wednesday and Friday are my most flexible days. Yeah. During the week. Okay. Sometimes one of those is my off day. It just depends on how the week looks.

11:33
Yeah. Do you still do an off day on Wednesday? Or Friday? Or whenever? If you know that you’re for sure off on both days, the weekend? Sometimes not? Yeah, then you might work. Yeah, I’m

11:44
fine to work Monday through Friday.

11:45
How strict? Are you? If you’re doing an off day, on a weekday? Are you do you still work? Or do you really like say no, I’m not working?

11:53
I probably will not get dressed that day. So if someone wants to see something like I can’t, but you

11:59
still go to the email. I’ll probably still check my email. Yeah. Okay. I love it at times.

12:03
I don’t

12:06
get your day off you. Do you?

12:07
I think it’s like if I wouldn’t, if someone texts me, hey, just sent you something, then obviously, you know, time sensitive, but I don’t I don’t mind just taking a peek. And but I’ve also so in the beginning of my career, I couldn’t just take a peek at the email because it would eat at you. Yes. Like I had to address it right then. Yeah. Now I can take a peek and be like, okay, okay, okay. Okay. I’ll do all that tomorrow. Right. Okay. It’s fine. That’s fair. I don’t know if that just comes with time or perspective or mindset therapy, where you’re realizing that these things can wait and wait. Yeah, for sure. So it just went that has gotten much easier for me because there was a time I couldn’t do that at all. Yeah. If I saw it, I had to I

12:51
had to do it. Yeah. Okay. Several of my daily things are social media related, but with more intentionality. Okay. Okay. So let’s not lie to ourselves. We’re all going to get on social media in a day. Yeah, it was literally the first thing you just listed. Right? Okay. So if you’re going to go on to social media, and you have some sort of thoughtful, intentional strategy, like, are you going to engage with people? Are you going to write comments? Are you going to respond to DMS, like, are you going to post one story three times a day, whatever it is, I think that’s a daily thing. And that if you have a system in place of what it’s going to be, that’s ideal. I always respond to comments and DMS, like so if I’m going to open my Instagram, that’s the number one thing I have to get done. Ideally, you probably would want to set a timer because you can end up in that rabbit hole pretty fast. Right? Right. Like, oh, well, I caught my DMs and my comments. And now all of a sudden, I’m scrolling through looking at these ads. Right, and buying shirts and stuff. No, no, no. Okay, so those are my social things. I would also say there are some daily tasks in within your real estate business that obviously cannot be put off until your office day. If you get a new buyer and they want an MLS search setup. If you need to write an offer, or you know, send some sort of response document, a counter or an addendum, like all these things happen daily, right? Yeah. So even if it’s not your assertive office day, I’m doing air quotes. There’s gonna have to be some admin in every part of your workday, right? Like, at least one hour, somewhere in the day, you’ve got to check the email and do the things. Yeah, return calls, text messages. I mean, that takes up a while. What else do I have and then planning for the next day? I think is a really important part of your daily routine. So we have talked about morning routine and evening routine on previous episodes. I don’t remember the numbers. Okay. But I think having some type of startup and shutdown is crucial and that for you to think through what are the steps of that? How do I start up my workday? How do I end my workday? And at the ending, you need to be planning out for the next day. So what did I not accomplish today that I was planning to do? How can I get that done for tomorrow? Like, does it need to carry over? Is it just a task? But as it turns out, I don’t need to do. I think you got to plan. Especially if you have a bunch of appointments the next day, I cannot get up and have appointments all over town and not think it through.

15:25
I may be working this evening, because tomorrow, Friday, as we are recording is Haven’s birthday.

15:33
Oh my god and school is closed. Lucky for her.

15:38
So tait school is still open. Thank goodness, but havens is closed. Okay. But it’s because it’s her birthday. We have a special day and I am not going to be checking my email or opening my computer tomorrow. Right? So this might be a night where after I put the kids to bed, I check one more time, because tomorrow is tomorrow’s real off for real off. I’m not going to be available. So that you know, but that’s okay. Yeah. It’s not like I do it every night. No, but I just want to make sure that I can enjoy the day and not be stressed. Right.

16:12
Okay, I love that. But that’s all about preparation. Right? So proactive instead of reactive. Okay, so how are we planning for the next day? All right. Are there any things that you want to do once a week or weekly besides your office meetings?

16:30
Not necessarily.

16:31
Okay. I’m gonna give you some examples from my list. Okay. Number one, this is for what daily or weekly where we moved on from daily. Okay. I mean, other than client appointments, you know, showings, inspections, things that you have to do closings? We’ve covered. Yeah, daily daily is actually not that hard. It’s not. No, you’re right, people. If you’re wondering, Where’s my one hour time block of cold cold calling? It’s not in there? No. Like, I mean, hopefully your social media strategy has something to do with your database. And maybe you’re spending some time with your day, like you spend time with your database during your Facebook strategy. Right, right. Okay. But I mean, that would be what I would want to add in there if you were, but we’re not going to put in cold calling. Moving right along.

17:14
Okay, what about the people, because we get a lot of messages that people are trying to do the 555 every single day, five letters, five calls, five text messages, five, DMS, five,

17:26
honestly, that only takes an hour, every day. But you don’t have to do it every day.

17:32
I know. But that’s what I wanted you to say. Because we get lots of emails of people saying, I told myself I was going to do this 555 Every single day or that I was going to make 20 calls every single day. And then by day to run, if you miss the first day, you you really beat yourself up per your email that you’ve let us know. And we’re here to give you permission that just maybe that’s not what’s working for you. You have to find what does work, right? What do you what tasks do you want to do? Yeah,

18:03
and then maybe you’re going to do them, but maybe change it to 555? Weekly? And that means only one a day, right? Or you do them all on one day, but you knock them out. Then maybe next week you add it to 777. Yeah, right. Like yeah, what started 111 Are you doing none, right? Are you currently doing now? Can

18:23
we please celebrate that you did it for a day? Right? If one day, right if you’re currently

18:27
doing nothing, and then you do something? This is very atomic habits moment. Yeah, just add a little thing. Then add another thing. We don’t have to revamp the whole freaking thing. I just think that there’s a lot of chatter, post articles, talk, whatever speakers who are going to tell you, all of these glorious, you know, here’s what you should do every day. And then you listen to when you’re like I would rather not do any the vast majority of what they’ve just told me to do to be successful. I have no desire to do Yeah, so I was reading an article in preparation for this podcast. And at one point they said from noon on it was a sample day. Okay, successful agent and I’m not going to get into who but it was a giant, giant giant coaching person. And they said from 12 to 430, you should be setting 390 minute appointments, either new buyers or, or listing appointments, okay, per day, 390 minute appointment from 12 to 430. And the actual quote said, work your face off so you can go home at a decent hour. Work your face off. I was like, Well, I don’t want to work my face off.

19:44
I don’t want every 90 minute appointments. If I

19:47
had 390 minute appointments per day exhausts a number one I would have more listings that I could ever handle,

19:54
right? Where would you even get that oil every day?

19:57
If I had a y’all I’m going to be very honest with you at the volume that I go out if I had three appointments in a week, that’d be a great week and I’d be set. Yeah, three a day. I can’t imagine. How would you have time for anything else? No. And that anything was if you didn’t have in the article, it did say if you were new, and you didn’t have three appointments set per day, you could use that additional block for more prospecting. Okay, more lead generation, gotcha. More cold calls, more door knocking, more expires and withdraws. Right. Until you got in your groove. And you had three appointments a day. This is intense. It’s so intense. Yeah. I mean, I think the majority of our listeners are female, a lot of them are parents, female or male. I think that it’s ridiculous to assume you had no life duties that came up during the course of the day. Right? Like from 8am until 4:30pm. I just worked

21:00
right, hardcore. I had no interruption and worked my face off. So that I could go home. Right? I mean, come on. I know. I the reason I think this is good to talk about is because I am one of the people that has fallen into the trap of reading sample schedules like this, right? And it really getting into my head about I’m not doing enough, you know, I’m not good enough. I should be working harder, right? And this kind of gives you permission to remember that we’re all real people. Yeah, we all have real responsibilities outside of work. Yeah, the goal, one of the goals of our podcast is to help you not live to be working right, but to work so that you can live and I think your life comes before your work.

21:46
The other purpose is for you to say, wait a minute, just because I read that article doesn’t mean I have to do that.

21:52
And that’s why because before this, I would have read that and been like, oh my gosh, I’m so far behind so far behind, right? And that’s just not the truth.

22:02
No. What if you’re part time? It’s unrealistic. What

22:07
if you’re in a different season? You know, we have this seasons of life episode, we have some of our listeners taking care of older parents or becoming new grandparents or wherever you are in life where you just can’t follow this strict rigid schedule, right? You need to have that flexibility.

22:24
Very simple key is don’t do nothing. Correct. Just do something. But there’s no end. It’s something

22:32
that you’re good at that you is something that you like, yeah, that brings you energy and gets you excited. Not things that fill don’t fill your calendar with things that fill you with dread. Please don’t Don’t do that. No, no. Hey, friends, we are here to tell you that we have made you a freebie a freebie. It’s free. It’s free. Those are my favorite. Why note

23:00
look. I love a good freebie. And this one is vital. I love it. Now, I will say we have always since episode nine way back then when we had our database episode, the original had our database template for free. Yeah, hey, it is a spreadsheet. It is the column headers and some instructions on how to use it. It is not difficult. No, but we have amped it up this year. And now there is a Who do you know list that comes with your database template. So this

23:31
list will really help you build your database. If you feel like you don’t know who to add. How do I find people this list gets you brainstorming about who do you already know, right? This

23:43
even works if you’re brand new to your area. Yeah, so who do you know you’re gonna take a list and you’re like, oh, yeah, I know these people, I know them and you’re gonna put them straight onto that database template and you’re gonna hit the ground running with your database work. It’s an excellent resource. And you just have to visit hustle humbly. podcast.com/start here.

24:04
Yes. Because the database is the foundation of your business. It’s where you need to start. Start

24:08
there. Perfect. Okay, enjoy. Okay, um, let’s talk about weekly. Okay, here are a few. All right, add context to your database, check in with your database. If you’re going to do something like birthday cards, like what are the strategies you’re using for your database? I do think a weekly like let’s just say you’re scrolling through like you do. Start at the A’s contact a few people every day or once a week or however long you’re going to do it. I think that’s okay to do weekly. It doesn’t mean you touched everybody weekly. No, you just got a few right. Okay. If you have to purchase closing gifts, if you’re looking to do maybe some type of training or education or listen to a podcast, you know that would be a weekly thing. Plan your social media account. If you need to do that, what about your transaction check in. I’m not checking on my transactions every day, every day, that is not necessary. You know, once a week should be more than enough unless you get an email text or a phone call that isn’t, you know, a bump for something, right? Like, I need something. Otherwise, I don’t need to check in and go through my checklist every day, not necessary. I have

25:24
my internet browser set up to the main tabs that I need. Okay, so whenever I click on the internet, it automatically opens my email, right? And my Trello, okay, and MLS. Love it. So it’s just, they’re there. And that also helps me because Trello is great, but you have to look at it. Right idea, you know, what to do to look at it. And so having it on my startup has been really helpful to just keep that the important thing top of mind. Yeah.

25:57
Or if you’re trying to use your CRM or some type of will make it so it’s in front of your face. If you don’t see it, you’re not going to use it. Right. Okay, let’s finish the week, planning the following week, like when is your office day going to be obviously our schedules change week to week went? Like, when are you going to meal plan or grocery shop or do your laundry or take a day off?

26:19
Yeah, we still have other things to do with the plan.

26:21
All right, I like to review my activity sheet. And so that’s like my planner, but I don’t have a planner. Right. So I have like a one page. What happens next week? Who am I following up with? It’s like, try the one paper you know, I like to do that a finance check in if you’re not keeping up with the money coming in, and the money going out? You’re not running a business? No. And you better do it once a week, at least.

26:43
For sure. At any given moment, you should be able to say exactly how much is in your account. Right?

26:49
And how much you owe in taxes. Yeah. The mean, like you need to

26:53
know no surprises.

26:54
Okay. Filing, if you’re doing any type of filing, you got to do that weekly. You’d be one I did five handwritten notes. You want to do that? I think five a week is fine. Do you need to do five a day?

27:05
No. Unless you just love to write. If it’s like the thing

27:09
that brings you so much joy at the end of the day. Great. Now, I will tell you the Brian Buffini story. I think Brian is an amazing database worker like that is what he teaches. He did it very successfully when he had his real estate business open. He obviously coaches hundreds of 1000s of people to do it. Now. He said his personal goal was to do five notes a day, handwritten notes a day. And he told his assistant to put the five notes on his day like the the cards on his desk every morning. Okay, and if he didn’t do it the day before five more showed up. And if he didn’t do it that day, five more showed up. And he like had to get them doubling down. Yeah,

27:48
that’s a good point.

27:49
I don’t know that I agree with this method. Because it it feels like the weight of the world is in crushing you. Right? Like if you didn’t do the five a day and five more showed up, and then five more. And then five more, you would be like this is not going to happen. Right. But at least if you put the five on your desk, try to get those done by the end of the week. And then you put five more, right? Yeah. But it worked for him. Yeah, he had his clients remembered him. Now he didn’t have the luxury of being able to use social media. Correct, right. So if you wanted to stay in front of those people, and if call them or you had to write them, and if we had

28:25
no social media, I’d probably have a lot more time to do that.

28:29
That’s also true. But you have to think about what a bigger impact you would have if all of the people that you you know, or your friends could possibly see your nice note. Right? It’s just a quicker, scalable way to talk to your database. Yeah, right. Or what if you did a really nice email newsletter might be able to get to those people right away without Anyway, moving on from the five handwritten notes. Okay, preparing marketing for listings. So if you’re doing something for your listings, I would say that’s weekly, not daily. I do a Friday shutdown routine. That’s very important to me. And if you’re gonna request reviews, I think that’s a date weekly, not a daily. Alright, so weeklies, yeah. Are you ready to go on to monthly newsletter, we don’t think you need to do it more than that. Right? If you want to do a deep dive into your finances Budget Check in I think monthly would probably be a good time to do that. Like I print out my budget every month. Right? So that I know what I gotta do that month. Setting aside your tax payments. I mean, I think once a month you gotta Yeah, make sure make sure record transactions in if you’re keeping you should be keeping track of where your business comes from. I don’t care how you record it on a piece of paper in a spreadsheet on a whatever like on a board in your office, but you need to write them down. Where did they come from? What’s going on? Okay, clean off your computer desktop. I’m so bad at this. Oh, I love to do that. But yours is probably nice and tidy it is clean it Your also your daily task is to clean out your photos

30:03
I do I do clean out my photos every day. So

30:06
your digital footprint and your digital clutter is important to keep under control. Yes. Okay. Okay, and then update the reviews on your website. If you’re like you’re keeping yours in one place. Now the way I have, right? If you’ve got reviews during the month, you need to cut and paste those on to your documents. So you house them somewhere that belongs to you. Okay, are we ready for quarterly? I haven’t here if you’re going to do database Popeye, if you want to pop by your database, go to their home. You most definitely do not need to go more than once a quarter twice a year once a year fine. For sure. Okay, but please do not once a month not necessary. Obviously you have to pay your taxes quarterly. Make that payment. Yep. Review your yearly budget business expenses, put together your buyer seller folders. So if you have some type of listing, presentation buyer folder, whatever like buyer, you know, consult I like to keep five or more of them done. And I probably 10 at a time I’ll do them quarterly so that I can just grab them and go, but basically have those things ready. Update your vendor list and scrub your database and update your email templates. Delightful, right? But you don’t need to do that every day or every month or every week or every No, no, once a quarter. And look, you could possibly spread these things out. We’re not doing them all on the same day. And then let’s talk about yearly things we don’t need to do other than once a year clean out your file cabinet prepare your your docs for your taxes. I mean, we’re not doing this all the time. It’s tax time tax time. Do your business plan for next year. We don’t need to do this one’s goal set only need to do this once. Do you want a vision board? I feel like once a year is plenty update your resume. When you do this once I feel like

31:57
almost all the yearly stuff is a December January project. I know you have to update yours on your resume or right.

32:05
Yeah, it’s just here’s the good news. That’s when real estate is slowest. So it’s a good clean out time. Perfect time to do that. Updating your business rules your niche. If you’re making like a certain business philosophy, like I have a philosophy for buyers and sellers, what is it? Do I need to change it? If you have a mission statement or your bios are things that are like you know, the foundational pieces of your business? I don’t think you need to change your business card every day, every week or you know, I mean, like once a year check on it. Do you need signs once a year? A lot of that is from the sprucing episode to Yes, right? Like you only need to do these things once a year. Good spring. Yeah, check your email signature your profiles, make sure you update any materials that you give clients. Right. So do you have the current forms that you need? That’s it for the year? Yeah. I don’t have a lot of things that you may hear people tell you to do. Because I don’t actually do them.

33:02
And we’re not we’re not here to lie to you. Right?

33:05
These are the things I do, you can add to

33:08
I do. Like the people when they are saying the 555 or like the motivational people the speakers like, but you don’t sell real estate. Right? Some of them, you know, I it’s easy to say what to do. But we want to be the I want to go out in the field with you guys. I

33:28
want to come at this from an imperfect place where I’ve never had a perfect day. A couple I mean, I’ve been doing it 17 years, maybe I did really well a couple of times, where you’re like, oh, like we think I wake up at five and I do all of these things. No, no,

33:44
no, right. But I do

33:46
weekly meal plan. I’m

33:48
pretty good. Like, now I wish I could do that. Like you’re certain

33:51
that there are certain things you’re going to be good at, which will save you time and certain things that you’re not going to be good at which is going to suck time. Right, right. It’s really about finding the balance between saving time and sucking time. What

34:03
are you good at? Right? So

34:05
do the things you’re good at quickly. And then you have more time to do the things you suck? Yeah, I mean, you know, it takes you a while to do laundry. I don’t know. Yeah, maybe it takes you a while to write five notes. But you do it but it just takes a while. Maybe it takes you a while to do data entry or file or like get ready for your taxes. But yeah, but don’t. I think the problem as we look at the full list and feel like it’s they’re all daily, correct. And we’re not do all

34:35
these things all the time. No. Right? It’s really not that hard.

34:40
It’s really not that hard. And that’s what I think happens though, we start to realize it’s not that hard, or we just don’t do all the things we want to do. And then your days get spent scrolling Instagram, or like eating to our lunches. Or like, you know, oh, just let this thing Oh, Add what is the one that Anna talks about Pareto principle that the work will expand to fill the time allotted? Yes. So if you give yourself two hours to do a task, it’ll take two hours. If you give yourself six, it’ll take six. Only you can figure that out. And you get faster and faster. Like I can check on all my transactions in 15 minutes. Right? Right. Because you get more competent, the more times you do it. Yeah. So then you move faster.

35:27
Okay, so this sheet that we went over is included in the time

35:31
management, get it in time management, okay, why I teach it is just, you can review the items on the list, and then kind of like add things that you do that I don’t Okay, or remove things that you don’t want to do in your business. And then I make you highlight all of the urgent versus It Can Wait, list items. Nice. Okay. So that you know, what is urgent, okay, writing a killer is is urgent, you know, writing my five notes, maybe not urgent, you know, like, what can I urgent versus it can wait. And then I say to underline the tasks that you can do in batches. Okay, what are things on here that maybe you can put into a time block or task batch? And then I say, to start the tasks that could be outsourced completed by an admin or your office? What are the things on this list that have to be done in your business, but they don’t have to be done by you? Right, that’s good. Like, who’s gonna do that? MLS input or whatever it is. And then if, if you guys take nothing away from this podcast, if you can just start scheduling into your calendar, like in black and white, your off day and your office day, your life will be transferred those

36:38
two days, gosh, my saving grace,

36:41
I mean, that’s really all it takes. And then if you have a full Office day where you didn’t allow yourself to leave your office, whether it’s at home or in your, you know, brokers office, you didn’t go to a fun lunch, you didn’t go to a broker to work like, No, it was an actual office day, you can complete so many of these tasks. Yeah, like a lot if you’re doing a weekly office day. Okay, and then I would say it wouldn’t hurt to go ahead and put on your calendar, which office days are designated for your monthly tasks? Okay, well, this office day, my focus is my newsletter. This office day is my quarterly tax, like, what are you?

37:18
You need to give yourself some direction some parameters, you could go in the

37:22
beginning of the year and be like this office Tuesday is my you know, database clean out three times, whatever you want to do, but put it on the calendar. If you don’t schedule it, it won’t happen. Correct. Okay. Anything else you want to say? We’ve done a full Office day episodes? So I know we’ve given like the how you structure that? What are your time blocks kind of thing? I don’t think we need to get into that. Is there anything else that you feel like is a? I don’t know? I mean,

37:51
we talked about you can go back and listening to our morning and evening routine. That’s your our spruce up episode. Take a day off. Yeah. So we have some good. Like, if you want to dive in. Yeah, if you want to dive into this more, there’s plenty of episodes that complement this.

38:08
I think we also lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that because our business is flexible and changing, and the appointments can be any time that we cannot actually create an ideal day. And I think that’s total BS. Yeah, like you can say, but make it in blocks instead of like, it has to be the whole day. I mean, even if you’ve got a closing scheduled in what you thought was going to be your office day, then make the afternoon your office block.

38:34
You could just have an office morning and then go to closing, right?

38:38
Why does it have to be all or we’re very all or nothing people,

38:41
I’m that way I struggle. I have to I have to watch myself and be like, if I don’t have time to do the whole thing. I’m not going to do it at all.

38:48
The other thing I want to talk about is a lot of people talk about top three, like what are your top three for the day? Like what are the big tasks you’re trying to do? Sometimes my top three lasts for two weeks. Like it doesn’t get done for two weeks. I mean, like, you can have your two, I think having a top three for your week is probably more in line with how the reality of real estate is.

39:10
That’s kind of how I am with my email. Right? I don’t really keep it at inbox zero. When I get to Inbox Zero. I’m very excited. But that probably only happens like once or twice a month maybe right? Because sometimes things sit there that I need to do, but I haven’t done them yet. But I can’t delete it because I haven’t done it yet. But it’s that it’s there. Yeah, that is keeping me on track to do it. When it will get done. It will

39:35
so I get to inbox zero you get there twice a month. I get there twice a year. Okay. But I’m like celebrate. Yeah, it’s empty. And you know, the more you focus on making that a priority, I think the easier it is to get it to zero

39:52
sure if that’s your goal. Yes. Which we think it probably should be. Yeah, that’s a good that’s how you know everyone’s taken care of. Yeah. Oh,

40:01
Okay, anything else you want to talk about with task frequency?

40:04
I think one of the things that we kind of touched on is how I mentioned, if I can’t finish the whole thing, I just don’t want to do it at all. Right. Reading atomic habits really helped me. Yeah. Because he said, instead of saying, I only have 15 minutes, I’m not going to do this saying, how much can I get done in 15 minutes, right? If you’re sitting in your car, you’re waiting on a buyer to show up, or at the doctor’s office, waiting on an appointment, whatever it may be. Yeah. Don’t let that be wasted time. No, that could be time that you do a quick email clean out and just swipe, swipe, delete the things you know can be deleted. That can be a time that you do go on Facebook and do all the birthday. Yeah. If you use your time wisely, by the end of the day, you really are off. Yeah. And so those 15 minute breaks, where you’re waiting on things during the day, just do your best to try to make them productive. I did have to set timers on my Instagram. Oh, yeah. So it reminds me Hey, you’ve been scrolling for 15 minutes. Is it time to get off? And I’m like, that was fast. Yeah, I thought I have been like five minutes. So there are things to just be if you feel like you’re drowning in your schedule. Yeah. It’s just think about, like you said, with the time audit, how are you using your time right now?

41:24
Right. And don’t be so hard on yourself? You’re not using it perfectly? No one is no, no one is using all their time perfectly.

41:33
No one’s got it all together. No,

41:35
I don’t know. I don’t you don’t know. Not even close.

41:39
Your good meal prep or though? Everyone? Everyone?

41:44
Everyone has successes in their day, right? Yeah. Like, you know, you got to you got to use your situation contextually choose your schedule, and then give yourself some grace. If you don’t keep up with it exactly the way you want to. Right. Because what happened was worse is just saying, nevermind. I won’t try anymore. You know, don’t do that and do everything. But you can do something. Yeah, right. Okay, are you ready for a toast?

42:10
I am. Okay, great.

42:12
Let’s see here. We are gonna do our toast is from Arkansas. And Austin Barker is toasting to Danielle Barker. What do you think about this?

42:29
Are they related?

42:31
It’s his wife. Oh, I like and I are both somewhat newer agents from Northwest Arkansas who have just been absolutely crushing it. Wow. Okay. She has been a faithful listener for over a year and a half now and has listened through your library. Okay, hold on twice.

42:51
Oh my god. She’s listened to the whole library twice.

42:53
She is the bravest person I know. So much so that she has never looked back since leaving her stable career as a teacher. She is my biggest hero and mentor and without her guidance, I would never had the gall to start my own career.

43:10
That’s so sweet. I mean, they’re supportive Austin. That’s wonderful. And he knows she’s going to hear this because she has the Listen Nice.

43:19
So cheers to Danielle and thank you to Austin and I love I love hearing stories of good husband wife team. Yeah, so sweet. I know. And it’s nice when someone is supporting you. And it’s even better when they know what you’re going through. Yes, right.

43:34
They know everything. Okay, so

43:35
you’re being productive isn’t about doing everything. It’s about getting something done and then tomorrow getting maybe something else done.

43:43
Just be be proud of yourself that you did something right. Right. That’s it. You’re already ahead.

43:48
You’re already ahead. I’ve already listened to this episode. You’re our head your head. Okay. Goodbye, everyone. Goodbye.

43:54
Thank you so much for tuning in to the hustle humbly podcast. Let us know who we should toast to for the next episode. Be sure

44:02
to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at hustle humbly podcast. If you have an episode topic or question please email us at hustle humbly podcast@gmail.com

44:11
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. See you next week. Bye. This is the goodbye