The way you organize your schedule says a lot about you as a DIY landlord or property manager. Effective time management allows you to completely take control of your schedule and therefore boost personal productivity. Do you currently manage your time efficiently and prioritize the most important tasks? If not, what's missing from your daily routine?
Here are a few time management techniques that will help you tackle the work day:
1. Make a list.
If you have numerous tasks to complete in a day, identify the most urgent ones and deal with them first. After that, move to low-priority issues even if they require less time to complete. Prioritizing your tasks can help break your day up into chunks of productive work. For DIY landlords, this factor is essential and can affect the success of their business.
For example, imagine you've received an urgent maintenance request from a tenant. The faster you resolve the issue, the more likely a tenant is to stay in the rental for longer. Since tenant turnover costs a lot, you're probably interested in maintaining a good tenant-landlord relationship and encouraging them to rent your property for longer. So try to be a master of resolving maintenance problems in a blink of an eye. If you can follow this strategy, you'll be able to retain reliable renters.
Sit down every morning with either a physical pen and paper or a list app (we like Todoist for simple lists and Evernote if you plan on integrating it into a larger time-management system). When prioritizing your daily tasks, focus on one task at a time so you get a clear picture of all the tasks, responsibilities, and deadlines.
2. Set clear long-term goals.
Once your daily routine comes naturally, establish long-term goals to define your next steps. Don't set general abstract objectives, as you might not be able to visualize the final result. Instead, a clearly-defined plan will help you to reach your ultimate goals. That means setting 2-year goals, 5-year goals, and 10-year goals that are very specific. Instead of saying you want to have a passive income stream that you can live off of after retirement, do the math and figure out how much that will take. If you need $50,000/year to be comfortable, how many rental properties will you need to own?
Along with that, successful landlords are good at establishing thorough financial plans before renting out properties. Use an accounting software tool specifically for landlords to keep track of monthly income and expenses so you don't get lost in finances during tax season.
Related: How To Grow A Rental Business: Top 5 Landlord Tips
3. Try not to procrastinate.
Whether it's a fear of failure or just laziness, procrastination is the fastest way to stall progress- especially for landlords and property managers. Putting off important tasks leads to a heavy workload and chronic stress. If becoming a victim of procrastination isn't on your checklist, try the following:
- Avoid any distractions like scrolling social media accounts or listening to the latest episodes of your favorite TV show in the background.
- Check your email only a few times a day: The inbox won't disappear.
- Snooze notifications on your devices: Why would you need to view who has liked your Instagram picture every two seconds?
- Create a playlist to use as background music: Choose the songs that won't distract you or make you sad.
Related: Top 5 Must-Have Property Management Skills: Tips for Managing Rentals
4. It's okay to seek help.
The most successful DIY landlords take advantage of property management software systems to manage their rentals. Using an all-in-one property management software such as TenantCloud will simplify your workday. TenantCloud offers a great number of options that automate the process of running your rental business. The software makes it possible to create residential agreements, run screening reports, collect rent online, assign work orders to connected service professionals, get reminders and notices, communicate with the tenants within the system and more.
Related: Online Property Management Software: Save Your Time With Free Landlord Templates
5. Get enough sleep.
Getting enough hours of sleep is essential for everybody. The quality of your sleep influences your emotional and physical health, your productivity, and ability to set greater goals. Most adults need between 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night to feel energetic throughout the day. Make sure you get enough sleep to stay productive during the daytime.
Would you like to share any other time management tips? Leave your comments below. We'd love to hear what you think. :)
