Spending Time to Save Time!

Within the last week or so, I had the chance to chat with 8 Mortgage Girlfriend members, and 5 of them related how crazy busy they have been since the first of the year! 

I think the exact words they used were “out of control.” 

Is it a matter of time management, or is it something much deeper than that? 

I believe that you can’t manage your time until you know HOW your time is being spent.

When you go to a restaurant, there’s a chef, a server, a bartender, a cashier and a person who cleans the tables.  What you won’t find is a restaurant owner who cooks the food, serves it, makes the drinks, collects the money and cleans the tables! 

That’s crazy right?

This is where “spending time” to “save time” comes into play. 

What I propose is that you create a Word doc (or use a legal pad) to keep track of everything that you do during the day, in 15-minute increments.  Time spent on the phone.  Time chasing conditions.  Time creating marketing materials.  Lunch.  Breaks.  Then do the same when you go home at night.  Time cleaning your house. Shopping. Laundry.   Personal tasks like hair styling at the salon.  Mani-Pedis. 

Do this for one week. 

Yeah, it will take you MORE TIME.  It’s only for one week, but you will be amazed at what you will discover. 

Once you have compiled a list of your tasks, highlight which tasks that someone else can do for you.  It could be someone within your company.  Or (this is the cool part) this could be the JOB DESCRIPTION you use when hiring your first assistant.  The beauty of it is that you now know how many hours a week you need to hire them for. 

When it comes to your personal and home chores, it may be worth it to pay a cleaning person $100 to free up 5 hours of your time.  Have laundry delivered to your office.  Ask the mani-pedi technician to come to your office instead of you going there.  Have lunch delivered a few times a week.

Back to the story of the restaurant owner…are you the person who is doing EVERYTHING? Or should you pay someone else to do it for you so you can have a business and a life that won’t make you crazy and that you can control? 

Would you please share some of the time-saving strategies that you use on the Private Mortgage Girlfriends Facebook page?  If you are a Mortgage Girlfriend member and have not yet joined this private discussion page, please email [email protected] and she will add you to the group. Spending Time to Save Time!