The Goddess Blog: Feeling Overwhelmed? You May Be Focusing on the Wrong Things…

Every entrepreneur at every stage of starting or building a real estate business has a single problem in common: too many “to dos” and not enough time to do them all.

And this isn’t just a practical problem; it’s an emotional one as well.

There’s nothing pleasant or motivating about the feeling that there’s too much to do, and too little time in which to do it. It’s overwhelming, frustrating, and can easily lead to the feelings of failure and to the impression that a) you’re not doing enough and b) you aren’t getting the results you want.

And to make matters worse, it’s probable that some of the things you ARE getting done aren’t objectively, producing enough money to be worth what you’re giving up to do them. Because every hour you spend on your business is one you’re not spending with your loved ones, on your health, pursing your passions. It’s really worth stepping back and taking a hard, objective look at what you’re spending your time on from the perspective of leverage—is it worth what you’re giving up?

In reality, if you’re not getting what you want—whether that be a qualified renter, or a buyer for your wholesale deal, or enough leads—despite working REALLY hard, it’s probably NOT that you aren’t doing enough. It’s probably that you’re doing too much of the wrong thing, and not doing enough of the right thing.

Of the zillion things you’d LIKE to do, or think you SHOULD do, or WANT to do because it looks really neat and your competitors will be jealous, there are a much smaller number of tasks that are likely to generate a lot of the results you’re looking for.

Of course, in order to figure out which things those might be, it’s important to be clear on exactly what those results are. If you think that the point of marketing is to “Get your name out there” or “Build a brand”, just about anything you do to accomplish that is “useful”. But if you understand that the purpose of marketing is to “Get leads and make money”, you can be much more focused on just the things that are MOST likely to make those leads roll in.

Let’s say you have 5 hours in the coming week to work on getting a wholesale deal rolling. You also have this “to do” list, to which I’ve added the important “How long is it likely to take” qualifier:

1. Go to Vistaprint and design/order business cards (1 hour)
2. Hire a VA to set up my I buy houses website; create starter content for that site (4 hours)
3. Drive for dollars and send out PCs to the resulting properties (4 hours)
4. Create a facebook page, linked in account, and twitter account for my business (4 hours)
5. Design a logo for my company (1-2 hours)
6. Order and hang 50 bandit signs (5 hours)
7. Order list of motivated sellers, send out PCs to at least 500 (4 hours)
8. Call pizza delivery places, negotiate to put I buy houses flyers on their pizza boxes (2 hours)

Are these all “good” things to do? Sure. But if you really want to buy a house this week, you’re probably going to spend your 5 hours on #3 and/or #7. They are the most likely to get you the MOST results—ie contacts from motivated sellers—in the shortest period of time.

And yes, there’s a way to get more done than you can do in the 5 hours you have: pay someone else to do it. #6 would take only an hour if all you did was order the signs and hire someone else to hang them; #5 and #1 might take 30 minutes if you turned it over to someone on 99designs.com; #7 could be cut down to 2 hours by buying the list and hiring someone else to get the postcards in the mail.

But it’s an important skill to be able to look at your “to do” list from an objective standpoint and identify the high-leverage, delegatable, and, frankly, silly items (see #8—yeah, your competitors are all going to ooh and aaah over your creativity but you’re probably not going to buy one single property from that strategy).

Step back once a week and review your to do list with an eye to picking out the highest-leverage tasks to focus on. That way, you can ignore all of the other items you’re telling yourself you “should” do without feeling bad about “not doing enough”. It’ll be good for your mental state, your relationships—and your pocketbook.