Having discipline and self-accountability is essential to reaching time freedom. Whether it’s through focus-oriented music or watching motivational videos, there are many ways people hold themselves accountable and promote productivity throughout their day.
Regardless of your preferred method to stay on task, it can be challenging to actually be productive during the day. According to studies, a typical worker is productive only 2 hours and 53 minutes a day.
Success in real estate and achieving time freedom might be attributed to luck, hard work, or a little bit of both. But knowing how to optimize your skills, time, and productivity allows you to overcome common productivity obstacles.
Below is a list of productivity tips that will help you accomplish more in less time, helping you take back control of your time.
1. Create Daily Goals
My brothers and I sit down every morning and discuss our goals for the day. Using a simple Google spreadsheet, we identify the significant objectives we want to work towards on that particular day.
Starting out your day and asking, “What do you need to get done in order to move the needle in your work/investments?”
This approach will help you determine what the most important tasks, and writing these down helps with accountability. If it isn’t written down or on an online document, it’s easy to forget or overlook it.
If you’ve ever ended the day wondering, “What did I even do today?” then this is a good practice for you to implement. Most people have repetitive tasks that they do each day. But you should also aim to do something that moves you closer to your investment goals and time freedom objectives.
Without a list, it can be easy to become overwhelmed and jump around aimlessly from one task to another. Having a list of daily goals helps you track your progress, and energizes you since it allows you to break down overarching goals into small, daily pieces.
2. Eat the Ugly Frog First
In his book Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy says, ““If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first." In other words, if you have two tasks that need to get done, do the one that’s larger, more difficult, and critical first.
Tackle the least favorite task first thing in the morning, and the rest of the day will be easy in comparison.
Each day, with the list of daily tasks you’ve created, you can organize them from most important to least. And then, complete them in that order.
In the morning, you are more likely to have energy and less distractions. This makes it less daunting to take on those more challenging tasks. Once you complete it, you’ll have a positive outlook on the rest of the day.
In order to make sure you get through your list, turn away from distractions like your phone, email, or social media.
3. Reflect on Your Productivity
At the end of each week, take a moment to answer these questions. You can write down the answers in a notebook so you can revisit them later.
Did I accomplish what I wanted to?
Could I have accomplished this in a shorter timeline?
Is there anything that was unnecessary for me to attend?
4. Find Out What Time You Are Most Productive
We all have a certain time of day when we are most productive. During this time, we get an extra boost of focus and inspiration. This can be in the morning, sound at lunch times, or at night.
By identifying this productive time window, you can schedule certain meetings around it so you don’t interrupt your productivity. The task that needs the most attention and energy should be scheduled during your most productive hours. If this means reviewing investment opportunities, then schedule this during your peak productivity window.
5. Identify Your Priorities
If you claim to not have time for something, it simply means that it isn’t a priority. Building wealth and creating passive income is what will allow you to take back control of your time, so it should be high on your list of priorities.
To maximize productivity, it’s not about how much time you have. It’s about how you decide to spend your time. Time is the only truly non-renewable resource. Once you make this paradigm shift, you can take control of your day.
You shouldn’t let an exhaustive list of to-do’s overwhelm you. Instead, compress the list into a few priorities and attack those. You can get to everything else some other time.
6. Learn to Say No and Create Boundaries
If you don’t set a schedule and communicate with others when you are available and when you are not, they will take advantage of your time. To decrease random interruptions and external distractions, create boundaries with partners, family members, friends, and coworkers.
If necessary, block off certain hours of the day to complete your important tasks. If you need to underwrite deals or get on calls with lead sponsors, block off your calendar and tell others that you will be unavailable during that time.
7. Get Rid of Distractions
One of the biggest distractions to our day to day work life is our phones. To remove this distraction, my brothers and I often turn our phone on Do Not Disturb, or even put it in another room. This prevents us from getting pulled out of work flow by a text message, social media notification, or Youtube video.
If you need to have your phone on you, just putting it on mute and face down can help you stay focused. Putting your phone on mute for the amount of time you need to get a particular project done can help you maximize your time and get more done.
8. Don’t Fall Into the Email Trap
Emails are a great way to communicate with people. But reading and writing emails can be a major time drain. In order to save time responding to emails, pick a certain time of day you check your email. This will prevent you from getting distracted during the day and continuously checking your inbox. When you’re writing an email, keep it concise and direct. Removing fluff in emails saves you time and makes it easier for recipients to understand the main purpose of your message.
9. Sleep More
Before you write this one off, hear us out! Sleeping gives you a chance to recharge. This allows you to be a better worker and investor. In a study involving 4,188 U.S. workers, participants who slept less had "significantly worse productivity, performance, and safety outcomes.” Despite the traditional stereotype of the successful investor who works late into the night and the grind culture, failing to get enough sleep can lead to declines in performance and burnout.
10. Plan Today for Tomorrow’s Success
The night before, you should set up your to do’s for the following day. This allows you to determine the priorities of that day, and set expectations so you can hit the ground running.
11. Have a Weekly and Daily Routine
Some of the most successful business leaders utilize routines to stay on task and maximize their productivity. For Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square and Twitter, using a weekly and daily routine helps him. Jack has established themes for each day of the week. On Monday, he focuses on management. Tuesdays are for products. Wednesdays are for marketing. And so on.
Even if you work a job where you don’t have the flexibility to decide what you do on each day, when it comes to investing in real estate, you can separate tasks into different days. For example, Mondays can be for networking and meeting potential partners. Tuesdays can be deal underwriting days. Wednesdays can be market research, on Thursday you might read up on the economy or real estate trends, and Friday you can review your investment goals and make sure you are on track to accomplish them on your desired timeline.
Each day, having a morning routine is also impactful. Creating daily habits that you complete each morning, like reading, exercising, and writing down your goals helps you start your day on the right track. When you start with a win, you create momentum that carries on throughout the day.
12. Time Block Your Day
Time blocking allows you to designate certain windows of times to focus on specific activities and projects. This can help you sit down and get your work done, and also make sure you get to everything you need without running over on time.
13. Give Yourself More Breaks
Studies show that moving your body regularly allows you to increase energy levels without decreasing productivity. You can implement these as checkpoints. So when you complete a certain task, you can reward yourself with a break. Also, giving yourself a break in between different tasks allows you to declutter your mind and refresh yourself for the next thing you’ll be doing.
14. Do Not Multitask
Steves Job said it best. Focus is not, according to the late Apple co-founder, about saying yes to the task you want to focus on. “It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.” This is a great argument against multitasking.
Doing multiple things at once can be hard to refuse, and may even sound like a good way to maximize your time. However, studies have debunked the multitasking myth. In one particular study, it was concluded that 2.5% of people are able to multitask effectively. That means that the majority of us are not being as productive as we think we are when we’re doing two things at once. Instead of doing multiple things at once, MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller explained that multitasking actually involves jumping between tasks without ever really focusing on either.
What’s the Point?
Improving your productivity isn’t just about getting more work done. It’s about maximizing the time you have now so you can free up your time later. The first step on the journey to time freedom is to maximize the time currently at your disposal. That way, you can get more done in less time, and with this newfound structure, you can make sure you are prioritizing your financial goals. With any free time created from this increased productivity, you can use it as you’d like - spend time with family, pursue a hobby, or continue to build towards your passive income goals.
Either way, it’s up to you. That’s the beauty of time freedom, and that’s why increasing productivity is so important.