It’s the season for New Year’s resolutions and I’m guessing that like me, you may have had thoughts relating to jumping on a treadmill. But actually, read on, because I’m going to suggest that you take the beginning of this year to look at areas where you can jump off the treadmill, in a career sense that is.
We’re all so busy getting through our ever-growing list of tasks each day that it becomes difficult to take the time to step aside and identify the places where some short term focus and time investment could actually result in an ROI with a huge multiplier.
With helpful time management strategies like the Eisenhower Method of prioritising and time blocking, plus the array of new tech and tools at your command, you should be seeing a dramatic improvement in your expendable time…
Or is it possible that you or your business has fallen into this trap?
This concept may feel a little confronting, but don’t worry, it’s so common that in the mid-1950s, a teacher and writer named Cyril Northcote Parkinson captured the public’s imagination with satirical writings of his observations including the above. This is now known as Parkinson’s Law which professes that “if given an hour for a task, an individual will take an hour; given a day, he or she will take a day”.
So often we find ourselves wishing for more time or an extra pair of hands. But what would you actually do with the additional time or extra pair of hands if you were granted your wish?
Your wish is our command
Our customers report that based on an average size portfolio of 350 properties, they save approximately 8 hours every week or 416 hours annually. So now that you have your additional time, the big question is:
What are you doing with your 8 extra hours every week or 416 extra hours annually?
Time is a currency—have you spent yours wisely or are you still just “sooo busy”? Are you able to genuinely report on how that additional time has been re-invested in valuable areas of your business with a quantifiable improvement?
Could you leverage those additional hours and returns even further, compounding the benefits and advancing your skills to further improve your workflow efficiencies in order to achieve your next level business goals?
I’ve been across the real estate and PropTech space long enough to know that historically the average user will confess to using at best, 60% of their software capabilities. Why is that? The truth is there is no excuse anymore. Modern cloud-based systems have all the training and tutorials to support your learning with 24/7 on-demand training at no additional charge.
How to achieve your next level business goals
Here’s how you can utilise your additional time and resources to achieve your next level business goals.
Step 1: Identify the area with the greatest opportunity for improvement
Delve into your business and identify the area that would benefit the most from a solid review and give you the greatest return on investment for your time.
Step 2: Know exactly what outcomes you are looking to achieve
This might be streamlining your processes and workflows to reduce the number of touch points required, achieving a greater customer experience or reducing overheads and costs.
Step 3: Start from a blank canvas and be prepared to break all the rules
Be prepared to start from scratch so that your goals are subject only to your imagination and ingenuity. How good could great look? If you get creative with the right tools and people, what could you achieve?
Step 4: What complementary skill sets and technology do you need?
Investigate and balance the required human skills whilst doing your due diligence on potential new technologies and integrations available to help you achieve your results.
Step 5: Change management and implementation
No matter how small, change can make people in your workplace uneasy. Be sure to include them in the process so that there are no surprises. This way, everyone understands the desired result and why the changes are critical to the longevity and ongoing success of the business.
Step 6: Monitor, review and modify
If you get it right the first time, kudos to you! However, chances are you’ll need to do some fine tuning after implementation. Here’s another law for you to reference at this point:
Step 7: Repeat, repeat repeat
Remember that every time you successfully complete an implementation, there will always be a new area of opportunity waiting for your expert attention.
