5 Calendar Management Tips for Busy Real Estate Agents

When you run your own business, it’s crucial to know how to manage your time effectively. Yet, many real estate agents find that they struggle with planning out their days. In an effort to make the task a little easier, we’ve brought you five easy calendar management tips. Try them out to see which ones work best for you.

Here are 5 calendar management tips for real estate agents

1. Develop a color-coding system.

First and foremost, try color-coding your calendar. These days, many productivity apps allow you to categorize events by color, and taking advantage of that feature can help you to stay organized.

In this case, there are a few different ways that you can go about doing this. On the one hand, you can assign each client a color. Then, choose an additional color for your office and administrative tasks.

Alternatively, on the other, you can assign each type of task a different color. For example, showings could be red, listing appointments could be green, and administrative tasks could be blue.

2. Batch similar tasks together.

In many cases, calendar management tips start with writing out all of the tasks that you have to tackle during a given day. However, if you’re just starting to organize how you use your calendar, it can be confusing to try and figure out how to get those items from your to-do list and onto your calendar.

Here, it can be a good idea to batch tasks. Batching tasks is the act of grouping together similar tasks and doing them all at one time rather than sporadically throughout the day. For instance, you could answer all of your emails at one time. Then, move on to making all of your phone calls before turning to manage your contracts.

The theory holds that batching tasks can make you more productive by helping you maintain your focus.

3. Block out your time.

Once you’ve batched your tasks, the next step is to block out time for each of the batches on the calendar. In the beginning, this will not be an exact science. You should just take your best guess at estimating how long each of your batched tasks will take you.

Then, as you work on completing the batched tasks, be sure to keep an eye on the time. Do your best to track how long each task takes you. Over time, you will start to notice repetitive patterns and you can adjust your time blocks accordingly.

4. Make use of reminders.

Next, if your calendar app allows it, try to make use of reminders. For those who don’t know, a reminder is a notification that pops up on your phone at a specified time before your event. It’s meant to help you reduce the chance of missing a scheduled event on your calendar.

Depending on your app, you may also be able to set reminders that allow you to account for travel time. If you’re the type of person who is always rushing out the door to try and make it to your appointments on time, you may want to try and take advantage of that feature.

5. Update your calendar regularly — the most important calendar management tip.

The last calendar management tip we’ll offer is to update it regularly. As new appointments and to-do lists tasks crop up on your schedule, do your best to add them to your calendar right away. The more consistently you update your calendar, the more useful it will be to you.

If you can’t update your calendar while you’re on the go, it’s best to set aside a few minutes at the end of each day to set up your calendar for the next day. This will also help minimize the chances that any important events get forgotten.

The bottom line on these calendar management tips

At the end of the day, these calendar management tips are meant to help make running your real estate business a little easier. That said, managing your calendar can take some practice. With that in mind, do your best to incorporate updating your calendar into your daily routine. Eventually, it will become a non-negotiable part of your day.