Get more done
The 15-Minute Factor

Boost your productivity by breaking your day into smaller, bite-size pieces.

BY JOHN D. MAYFIELD

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

You may have heard that joke before, but you probably never thought about how it applies to your job as a real estate practitioner. If you’re like most salespeople, your daily schedule can look as large as an elephant—and it can be overwhelming to think about how you’ll get everything accomplished. This article will help you get a grip on your daily tasks and become more productive by breaking your day into smaller, manageable chunks of time.

First, answer the following 10 questions with a yes or no:

1. Do you exercise daily?
2. Do you read books to help further your real estate career and knowledge daily?
3. Do you spend quality time with family members daily?
4. Do you prospect for new clients daily?
5. Do you stay in touch with clients and customers regularly?
6. Do you send cards or notes to friends, family, co-workers, or clients regularly?
7. Do you follow-up with past clients periodically throughout the year?
8. Do you review your goals and chart your progress daily or weekly?
9. Do you spend time responding to your e-mails daily?
10. Do you file and organize your desk and important papers daily?

Of course, the list of daily activities that you should be doing could go on and on. It’s no secret that one of the biggest challenges for real estate professionals today is finding enough time to complete everything that should get done during a normal workday, especially tasks that are your least favorite. Hence, the high rate of burnout among real estate practitioners.

So, how can you get all of your tasks accomplished without going crazy? The answer is simple: start using the 15-Minute Factor, a strategy that teaches you to get more done by breaking your day into manageable modules.

Take prospecting, for example. Many real estate professionals get so busy with their daily schedules that they fail to contact potential clients. Prospecting is the lifeblood of any sales associate’s career and without it, your business will slowly dry up. By incorporating the 15-Minute Factor, prospecting becomes easier to tackle, and over time, you’ll cover an impressive amount of ground. Prospecting 15 minutes a day for five days a week quickly adds up.

Let’s say you make three contacts per weekday during this 15-minute “prospecting” period. You will have made 15 contacts in one week, and at least 60 for the month. That’s a huge increase for most salespeople—especially for those who are doing no prospecting at all throughout the month.

The same principal applies to reading, following-up with clients, and even exercising. Break these tasks into 15-minute modules so you make progress in all of the most important areas of life.

When you begin to focus on smaller time slots to accomplish your goals, you’ll see that devoting 15 minutes to a task is not difficult. The time goes by so fast that you may find yourself spending more than just 15 minutes on the project. You might even discover that a task you dread isn’t so bad after all. And once you complete your goal, you’ll feel so good about yourself that you’ll be inspired to move on to the next task.

Let’s face it, reading, prospecting, or exercising for 15 minutes a day may not meet the recommended doses, but it’s a lot better than not doing them at all. And all of us can find at least 15 minutes in our day to carry out these important “to do’s.”

I encourage you to take your daily calendar and map out some of your goals and daily tasks for tomorrow into 15-minute segments. During one hour you can do four different everyday jobs that otherwise might remain incomplete.

Block your time slots on a calendar and stick to them. Once you complete a task, check off the completed work. You’ll find that over the course of one month, you can do much more than you thought possible and you’ll have a record of the progress you’ve made.

As the Chinese Proverb goes, “A minute of time is an inch of gold.” So go out and make the most of your day!