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5 Tips To Increase Your Productivity As A Real Estate Investor
There just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done we’d like to. As one iconic soap opera puts it, “like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives.” It’s true — before we know it, hours, days, weeks and years have passed us by. We quite literally have no time to waste!Good time management is key to a productive life, professionally and personally. There’s a fine art to managing your time well and a learning curve, particularly for those of us prone to procrastination. What can we do to make our work more efficient? Increasing productivity often just takes small steps towards developing good habits.
Here are just a few time management tips to help you get everything that you need to do done.
5 Best Practices to Improve Your Time Management
Get Enough Sleep
Never listen to anyone who tells you should cut out sleep in order to get things done. We all have moments where deadlines mean burning the midnight oil, but sleep should rarely be sacrificed in the name of productivity. In the long run, a lack of rest is going to hurt you. Your focus, energy levels and attention span will suffer when you’re overtired.
In order to work efficiently and effectively, it’s best to aim for 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night. Your body and mind will be better for it. Remember, too, to be regular with when you go to sleep and get up. If you’re going to bed at 10pm one night and 3am another, regardless of how much sleep you get, it can throw off your biological clock and leave you feeling tired and off-kilter.
Quit Trying to Multitask
We used to think that the golden standard in productivity was found in mastering the art of multitasking. Really, multitasking is a myth. No one truly multitasks — we just switch focus very quickly. Two tasks are not thought of and completed simultaneously. The start-stop that goes on in our brains actually makes us less productive. More than ever, however, we’re pressured to try to multitask. We have multiple tabs in our web browsers, multiple screens vying for our attention, and more technology than we know what to do with. Step back. Focus on one thing. If you find you work better jumping from task to task, that’s fine — but don’t fool yourself into thinking you can get everything done at once.
Schedule Yourself Well
One of the best ways to improve time management is to keep a schedule. This is especially important for the self-employed. Too much flexibility in your schedule means there’s a lot of room to chase rabbits and find distractions. Schedule yourself thoroughly and consistently.
Related Article: 4 Essential Habits For Real Estate Investors
Identify Your Most-Tempting Time Wasters
Where do you waste time? Everyone does it. It’s too easy to end up reading too many articles in a row, check in on Facebook a little too frequently, or get distracted by small, unimportant tasks that actually don’t impact your work. Examine your habits and try to curb the time you waste. Breaks are important — but they must be kept within reason.
Practice Self-Care
Before you can do anything efficiently, you have to take care of yourself. Not only is sleep important, but so is self-care. Your mental, emotional and physical well-being is vital in everything. Get adequate exercise, read books and allow yourself to have hobbies. Find what you enjoy and find rest. You can’t maximize your productivity without taking care of yourself.
What are your best time management tips? Share with us in the comments.
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