By Kelly Quigley, REALTOR® Magazine

Time Traps: Proven Strategies for Swamped Salespeople by Todd M. Duncan (Nelson Books, 2005)

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You can’t slow down time, but you can change the way you spend it. When you invest your minutes wisely and avoid the many “traps” that clutter your day with busywork, you’ll find that eight hours a day is more than enough time to reach your sales goals and have a fulfilling personal life, Duncan writes. “Do you live to work or work to live?” he asks.

This motivational book explores eight traps that busy salespeople encounter, including the Control Trap (wasting time hoarding tasks), the Yes Trap (wasting time saying yes), the Quota Trap (wasting time counting sales), and the Party Trap (wasting time celebrating success), with each chapter ending with a time-saving summary of the main points. The overriding lessons: Break unproductive habits, focus on activities with the highest payoff, and make time to pursue dreams. “Take an honest inventory of your life,” Duncan writes. “Is it a reflection of your uniqueness, your ardent desires—or are you on autopilot, just going through the motions, filling up time?”

Tips From the Book:

• Don’t buy gadgets you don’t need. Sometimes technology isn’t better. It’s just prettier. There may be a subtle pressure to have the hippest tools available, but if you can accomplish something more efficiently without a tool, then don’t buy one just because everyone else has one. Do away with gadgets that are eating up your time, and learn how to use each tool to its fullest.
• Never call a prospect unexpectedly. Don’t call a prospect who isn’t expecting your call or isn’t excited to talk to you. If they don’t know who you are and why you want to speak with them, you will waste your time and theirs. To make the communication more productive, warm up the prospect before the call. Send them a memorable letter about your services that will evoke their curiosity, or ask a common friend or colleague to introduce you or arrange the meeting.
• Work without interruptions. How often do you surf the Web, check stocks or sports scores, e-mail friends, tell jokes, straighten up your work area, or shop online? Record how you spend time during your workday, and you may be surprised at how much of it is eaten up by time-wasting activities. Get disciplined and eliminate these tasks to free up time, which you could spend on business development, time with family, or a vacation. Set segments of time to work on defined revenue-generating activities and eliminate all other distractions.

By Kelly Quigley, REALTOR® Magazine

Time Power: A Proven System for Getting More Done in Less Time Than You Ever Thought Possible By Brian Tracy (AMACOM, 2004)

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Does your head spin just thinking about everything you have to get accomplished in one day? Between business meetings, errands, and spending time with family, it can be tough to find time to relax, track your professional goals, or pursue a hobby. Author Brian Tracy has an answer: a time management system that he says will give you two extra hours per day to spend as you choose. One element is making the most of time spent in your car, standing in lines, and sitting on airplanes. But it’s also about being better organized, setting sensible priorities, and mastering the skill of multitasking. If you’re not careful, you can become overwhelmed with unimportant tasks and procrastination—that is, if you haven’t already. “The good news is that time management is a skill, like typing or riding a bike,” the author says. “You have the ability right now to get into habits of excellent time management in every area of your life.”

Tips from the Book:

• Develop a compulsion for closure. One of the most important habits you can develop is that of completion. Set specific deadlines for yourself, and concentrate single-mindedly on tasks. Discipline yourself to do one thing at a time, and then to complete that one task before you begin something else. This will improve the overall quality of your life, and dramatically increase your productivity.
• Be selfish with your time. Remember, your time is your life, and this life is not a rehearsal for something else. Say “no” to requests for your time that don’t move you toward your own goals and personal aspirations. When you say “no” people will often express a little disappointment, but stick to your guns. Treat your time like money, and concentrate on high-value tasks.
• Make the most of your time in the car. Never allow your car to be moving without educational audio programs playing. The average car owner in American spends 500 to 1,000 hours per year behind the wheel, the equivalent of between one and two full-time university semesters. You can’t afford not to be listening to educational programs.

By Christopher M. Leporini, REALTOR® Magazine

If you find yourself working harder without seeing results, you might be focusing on the wrong areas. In Focal Point: A Proven System to Simplify Your Life, Double Your Productivity, and Achieve All Your Goals, (AMACOM, 2002; $21.95) speaker and consultant Brian Tracy demonstrates how to clarify your goals and direct your efforts to where they will matter most. The book uses numerous anecdotes and easy-to-remember formulas to eliminate the extraneous from your personal and professional life and concentrate on what you really care about.

Your focal point is the point that you should focus on at any given time to achieve the best possible results. Tracey cites the 80/20 rule, which states that the most important 20 percent of your workload contributes 80 percent of your results. If you can’t identify and then focus on your most vital tasks, then you’re wasting valuable energy. This idea applies to all aspects of your life, whether you are attempting to become your company’s top producer or striving to spend more time with your family.

Many people think that the only way to maximize their earnings is to exhaust themselves putting in longer hours. But where you apply your efforts is as important as how many hours you put in, says Tracy. “Chapter 1: Unlocking Your Full Potential” offers guidelines to increase your income, while cutting back on your workload. This goal may seem improbable, but Tracy argues that it’s simpler than you may think. He advises the following steps to double both your income and your vacation time:

• Identify which tasks contribute the greatest value to your work, from your personal observations and discussions with your broker and fellow salespeople. For instance, prospecting and follow-up are two areas that provide a valuable return on your time investment.
• Single out the tasks that sap your time and energy but contribute little to achieving your goals then delegate, eliminate, or outsource them. For instance, if you spend so much time on clerical tasks that you’re selling less, you might investigate hiring a personal assistant.
• Apply the Grand Slam formula, a system designed to increase your competence and efficiency through simplifying your processes; leveraging knowledge and people; accelerating your activities; and multiplying your efforts by organizing and working with people who complement your skills.
• Reserve a minimum of one full day off each week. No matter how much you love the real estate game, resting your mental muscles will keep you at peak performance. Gradually, increase your vacation time even more, taking two days off a week and scheduling occasional vacations.
• Pay more attention during your workday to see how planning ahead can reduce wasted effort. Of course, the real estate industry sometimes prevents you from slavishly following a schedule. But you can improve your business through strategies such as setting aside a certain time every day to cold call.

But how do you prioritize your tasks? “Chapter 2: Double Your Productivity” offers advice on how to make more efficient use of your workday. For instance, use the ABCDE First techniques to list all tasks that you need to accomplish, then rate each according to importance. “A Tasks” are things that cannot be postponed without significant consequences, such as a listing presentation or an open house. If you have more than one rank them A1, A2, A3. Meanwhile, “B Tasks,” although still important, can be temporarily delayed. For instance, you need to prospect to keep business flowing, but if something more urgent comes up, you can put it off for a day. Enjoyable, but nonessential tasks, such as social activities, are categorized as “C Tasks.” Finally, “D Tasks” are tasks that you can delegate, and “E Tasks” should be eliminated entirely.

These chapters teach you how to incorporate better time management into your day-to-day life. However, the book also demonstrates the importance of stepping back and establishing long-range goals. “Chapter 7: Supercharge Your Business and Career” shows you how set a long-range mission for your professional life. One valuable technique is to put your goals down in writing in the form of a mission statement. Your mission must be both achievable and tangible, and it can be as long or as short as you need to lay out you objective, Tracy says. He cites the orders that General George C. Marshall sent to General Dwight D. Eisenhower as the ultimate mission statement: “Proceed to London. Invade Europe. Defeat the Germans.” Keep it that straightforward, and you’ll get to top performer in no time.

When you can’t find your focus, your direction is uncertain, your concentration is blurry, and your energy is diffused. But when you can zero in on where your efforts will yield their greatest returns for your personal and professional life, everything quickly becomes clear.

By Christopher M. Leporini, REALTOR® Magazine

Immediately after you’ve jumped out of an airplane at 14,000 feet, panic isn’t an option. To struggle, to panic, to waste effort equals catastrophe. The same principle applies in business and in life—keeping your cool and maintaining focus are the keys to success, says Rich Fettke, author of Extreme Success: The 7-Part Program that Shows You How to Succeed Without Struggle (Fireside, 2002; $13.00) The author, a professional coach, former competitive bodybuilder, and extreme sports enthusiast, advocates taking a step back to reassess your goals, clarify your plan, and determine how to achieve your objectives without unbalancing other areas of your life. He draws on his clients’ histories and his own extreme sporting adventures (such as mountain climbing, skydiving, and bungee jumping) to illustrate lessons about setting goals, forming partnerships, and balancing your personal and professional lives. The book outlines these and other basic problems, proposes solutions, and assigns several homework problems to help you apply what you’ve learned.

The book argues that struggling through longer hours not only doesn’t guarantee success, it can actually prevent it from happening. This may seem counterintuitive, particularly for real estate professionals, whose incomes are directly tied to their efforts. After all, you work harder, you earn more money and greater respect—how can that be a bad thing? This thinking represents what Fettke dubs the “Struggle Syndrome,” a counterproductive belief that the harder you work, the better a person that you’ll be. But unfocused effort is wasted effort, he says. He quotes Vince Lombardi, who once observed that “Just because you’re doing something wrong, doing it more intensely isn’t going to help.” Success springs from the following principles: focusing on what’s important and eliminating or delegating the rest, using time effectively, and maintaining balance between the personal and the professional.

“Part 4: Watch Where You’re Going” offers advice on focusing your efforts by setting both long- and short-range goals. Some of this advice veers toward the “touchy-feely.” For instance, he suggests visualizing a meeting with your ideal future self, then writing down observations what this exercise reveals about your desired personal and professional direction. Other advice is more practical, such as “The Rule of Three.” This technique suggests that you focus on no more than three major projects at any given time to prevent information overload.

Going it alone when you could benefit from others’ help represents another source of wasted effort, says Fettke. “Part III: Don’t Climb Alone” stresses the importance of working with others to achieve your goals. Many real estate professionals are reluctant to delegate authority, but spending a large portion of your day on non-core tasks might not represent the most efficient use of your time.

The author also advocates forming a “success partnership” to keep you on track toward meeting your goals. Basically, you and your partner, perhaps another salesperson from your office, create a mutual support system, pushing each other not to fall behind and sharing in one another’s accomplishments. This relationship sets up a form of accountability—if you fail at meeting your stated personal or professional objectives, then you’re not just letting yourself down, you’re letting your partner down as well.

If you’re making big sales, but find yourself wishing that you could spend more time with your family, you might need to redefine success. The idea of balance is a reoccurring theme throughout the book. In “Part I: Stop Struggling,” the author advises drawing a “Life Balance Wheel” that maps out your satisfaction with the following areas: spiritual, career, finances, possessions, health, fun, professional development, friends, and romance. First, you draw a circle, then you slice it up into equal pieces, with each area representing a slice. Then, you assign each one a rating on a scale of one to ten and fill in the slice correspondingly, based on your level of satisfaction with this part of your life. A rating of ten would fill an entire triangle, while a rating of one would take up only a bit of it. From this simple exercise, you can see which areas of life need adjustment. He dismisses the idea that balance means compromising your professional effectiveness. Rather, he argues, when you improve your satisfaction with one area of your life, it spreads to all areas of your life. If you are unsatisfied with your life, then you aren’t a success, no matter how many sales you make, contends Fettke.

Ultimately, Extreme Success follows the same theme as many self-improvement titles, assuring readers that the power to change their lives is in their hands. However, it differs from many competitors in arguing that working harder alone is not enough. Every real estate office has at least one workaholic who wears his or her frantic schedules like badges of honor. Maybe it’s you. But the number of hours that you work is less important than whether you achieve your goals and enjoy what you’re doing. In the end, struggling through a workweek and struggling through freefall aren’t that different—either way you risk losing out on having a life if you can’t get your act together.

By Christopher M. Leporini, REALTOR® Magazine

Do you love selling, but find it difficult to concentrate on parts of the business you find less appealing? Pushing aside that paperwork or putting off those cold calls might grant you a temporary reprieve, but you’ll pay for it later. Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time (Berret-Koehler Publishers, 2001; $19.95), by motivational speaker Brian Tracy, teaches readers how to keep procrastination from sapping their productivity and churning up unnecessary stress in their lives.

The book is divided into 21 rapid-fire chapters, with tips to help you stop dragging you feet on essential tasks, get organized, and stick to your goals. The book’s central tenant is simple; discipline yourself to tackle your most challenging, most essential tasks first, and everything else will fall into place. After all, the author says, if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, odds are that it will be the worst thing that happens to you all day.

Your “frogs”are the essential, high-priority tasks that you can’t afford to put off. Why does it pay to eat your frogs first? In most cases, Tracey says, a few complex tasks generate the majority of your business–these tasks should leapfrog less essential jobs to the top of your to-do list. To prioritize a task, examine the consequences of putting it off. The greater the impact, the higher you should place it on you list. For instance, you might not enjoy cold calling, but if you need a steady stream of customers to keep your business running, it’s necessary to discipline yourself to work at it every day. (If you are a less experienced salesperson, consult with your broker to help identify your frogs.)

Of course, convincing yourself to eat your frogs isn’t always easy; but realizing that procrastination creates negative momentum that stalls your productivity is the first step toward changing. As the author says, “If you have to eat a live frog, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long.” One way to jumpstart your productivity level is to plan your week out in advance. The author advocates the 90/10 rule, which says that spending 10 percent of your week on planning yields huge productivity benefits. Getting your goals down on paper organizes your thoughts and allows you to develop workable plans. At the end of your workday, make a list of everything that you need to do the next day.

The size or complexity of a project may be another excuse to procrastinate; in such cases, eat your frog one piece at a time. Tracey advises breaking a big project into several manageable chunks to make your workload easier to digest. For instance, you might want to pick times during each week to focus on different aspects of lead generation, assigning specific days to cold call, update your database, and follow-up with past clients.

The key to overcoming procrastination is to take basic routines and repeat them until they become part of your work style. It might not seem like it would make much of a difference to start writing down to-do lists, but you’ll soon find that they help you stay on track. The frog metaphor provides a solid hook to embedding these ideas into your memory. Eat that Frog provides a silly, but memorable, metaphor to communicate the importance of tackling worst things first. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to get you to remember a basic principle and turn it into a regular habit.