Ultimate Daily Schedule for Real Estate Agents

Let's face it, being a real estate agent can be chaotic.  You're constantly being pulled in a million different directions all day long.  In this article, I'll show you how to control the chaos and run your business like the pros do.

The Typical Agent's Day

Most agents put out fires all day.

They're busy rushing from one task to the next, answering calls, sending text messages, and filling out paperwork.  And at the end of the day, they return home exhausted with little to show for it.

Sound familiar?  If not, think about your daily schedule right now.  How much of it has no chance of creating new business?  

Most agents have become more like customer service reps than real estate agents.  Whatever comes up, they simply take care of it, all day, every day.  They get to the end of the day though and all they were was busy. 

As real estate agents, we only get paid when our efforts produce revenue, not by how many emails we read or how busy we are.  We all get the same 8 hour work day. Once those hours are up, they’re gone forever.  And either you run your day, or your day runs you.  And as independent contractors, we're our own bosses, but the problem is that we're very bad bosses sometimes.

So let’s fix that.

Most Important Task in Real Estate

If you’re not taking time each day to generate new business then you’re not creating the opportunities you need to flourish and take care of the people you love.  Instead, many agents are too busy to be productive.

That’s not good.  

The goal isn’t to be busy.  It’s to sell more homes.

So how do we do this?  How do we create alignment between what we say we want -- to sell more homes and earn more income -- with what we ultimately do every day?  How do we actually have the time to do that?

We schedule it.

Scheduling your day takes less than 5 minutes.  But it will save you hours in wasted, unproductive time, day-after-day.  When you have the right schedule, it’s easily the #1 task that will grow your business more than anything else you do this year.

Let me show you how to schedule your day so you're growing your business each day, not just being busy.

Daily Success Schedule

To begin, everything that is important to you and your real estate business needs to be scheduled.  From generating new business, going on appointments, returning emails, to going to lunch and even family time.  If it's important, it should be scheduled.

Below are examples of important tasks you may want to include on your schedule.  I use the term "may" because every agent is different.  Some agents want to sell as many homes as possible and others are happy just to sell a couple of homes a year.  Different real estate goals require different schedules.  

Client time.  The time you spend with clients, such as listing or buyer appointments.

Follow up.  This is when you're sitting down and following up with agents, former clients, clients, and prospects.

Prospecting.  In sales, this time slot is often called the hour of power.”  It’s the sacred time of day when you intentionally create opportunities to grow your business.  

Practice.  Even if you’re a real estate veteran you should be honing your skills set. Professional athletes who have perfected their craft, still practice virtually every day, year-round.  

Personal time.  If your family is a priority, schedule them.  Otherwise, soccer games, plays, concerts, or whatever your family or kids are into will succumb to client's needs and other less important tasks.  Don't worry, there’s still plenty of time in the day to sell real estate.

Meals.  Just like your car need gas, you need to fuel your body.  Skipping meals or hitting the drive-through because you didn't have time for lunch is a sure sign your schedule is out of balance and your day is running you instead of you running it.

Rest and Exercise.  It’s your job to take care of your family and those you love.  You can’t do that if your battery is always low because you haven’t taken care of yourself.  

Run Your Business Like a Pro

Now that you have a list of essentials tasks, it's time to put them into a daily schedule.  When you do, you begin to see just how much junk is in our daily schedule and our work week.  We often spend crazy amounts of time on things that don’t help us be more successful or be with the people we love.

We can change that by creating a schedule and time blocking every essential task.  A lot of times, the only thing that ends up on our schedule is client appointments.  So we end up scrambling place to place, skipping meals, going crazy putting out those fires all day long.  That’s not a schedule that is healthy or productive.  Instead, we want to create a meaningful schedule for both our work and personal lives.

Next, enter your calendar into your smartphone.  This is now going to become your schedule that's set in stone.  Unless there's an emergency, these time blocks are non-negotiable.

So now when you get a call for a listing appointment, instead of dropping everything and rushing right over, you say, "I have availability between 1:00 and 3:00 pm, and then I've got availability between 6:00 and 7:00 pm.  Which one of those work for you?”

After that, we create reminders.  Instead of just winging it hour-after-hour all day, we’re going to do what successful people do.  Our smartphone serves as our personal assistant who keeps track of our schedule.  It's going to remind us what to do all day long, every day.

When a reminder pops up, we’re going to move from whatever task we were working on to the new tasked based on what our schedule says.  So if our calendar pops up and it says, "It's time to do follow up," you know it's time to stop what you’re doing and start following-up with clients.  This is how we can stay on task throughout the entire day. We're not being drug around by our clients and we won’t wind up at 5 pm wondering what just happened to our day. And because we're now uber productive, our stress levels will begin to go way down. We're in complete control.  

End the Chaos

Imagine a stress-free day that’s easy to do and proven to grow your business.  What would that do for your career?  Your family?  And yourself?

So remember, there’s never enough time in the day to do everything.  But there’s always enough time to do the most important thing.

To help you plan out your day, I’ve included an example Daily Success Schedule below. It provides a sample schedule that guides you through a productive day for a real estate agent.  Best of all, any agent can do it.  You simply need to follow it.  When you do, you’ll be amazed at the results.

Daily Success Schedule

6:30 AM – 8:00 AM:  Morning Routine

Fuel your body with nutritious foods, exercise to be more healthy (proven to boost your energy throughout the day), and get ready for the day ahead.

8:00 AM – 9:00 AM:  CEO Time

You’re the CEO of your business.   Start your day off like the most successful CEO’s -- begin by working on your #1 priorities for the day before you do anything else.

9:00 AM – 9:15 AM:  Market Intelligence

Stay on top of the market and become the expert your clients go to.  Scan the MLS hot sheets (new market listings) to keep your finger on the pulse of the market.  Create popular neighborhoods hot sheets and track homes for sale in those areas, too. This is also the time to read any emails (CAR, FAR, NAR) or headlines on the local, state, and national real estate market so you’re in the know of what’s happening in the industry.  

9:15 AM – 9:30 AM:  Perfect Your Craft

Get better every day.  Work on your craft to enhance your conversation skill-set, e.g., handling objections, FSBO and expired scripts, etc.  

9:30 AM – 10:30 AM:  Hour of Power

Generate new business.  No distractions. Just 60 minutes straight of prospecting and appointment setting.  Win here and you win the day and set yourself up for success.

10:30 AM – 10:45 AM:  Reward & Recharge Break

You’ve already achieved more than most agents.  Reward yourself and recharge with a fresh cup of morning tea/coffee or healthy fruit smoothie.  Want to supercharge the rest of your day?  Add a brisk walk -- proven to make you more productive.

10:45 AM – 11:30 AM:  Follow-Up

Return emails, phone calls, and texts.  Check up on listings and input any new prospects from prospecting into your CRM database.  

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM:  Lunch

Fuel your body and recharge for a great second half of your day.

12:30 PM – 4:00 PM:  Client Time

Use this 3.5 hour block to schedule three buyer or listing presentation appointments. If you’re a new agent and don’t have 3 daily appointments or presentations booked, use this time for additional prospecting and appointment setting time.  

4:00 PM – 4:30 PM:  Marketing Time

Build your brand and market yourself through social media posts (2 posts per day), a blog, or video.  Not tech savvy?  Choose another marketing method instead, e.g., door hangers.

4:30 PM – 5:00 PM:  Track Your Numbers & Prepare for Tomorrow

Review your day.  This is vital your business.  Track your appointments and make sure you’re on schedule to reach your goals.  Update any listings (pending, etc). Then prepare for tomorrow’s schedule by identifying the specific goals you need to focus on and get anything you’ll need for them set up so you can hit the ground running.  

Close up the business day.

5:00 PM – 7:00 PM:  Family Time

Work/Life balance is so important. If you want it to happen, you need to schedule it.  “Clear the calculator” and stay present and enjoy a meal with the ones you love.

7:00 PM – 10:30 PM:  Personal Time

Use the final hours of your day to hang out with your significant other and/or kids, read an enjoyable book, watch the game, or focus on a favorite hobby.  

10:30 PM – 6:30 AM:  Sleep

Rest and recharge for tomorrow.

Now it's your turn.  Create your own real estate schedule.  Keep in mind though that once you do, it becomes non-negotiable.  It doesn't do any good to create a schedule if we don't follow it or are constantly adjusting it on the fly all day long.  The quickest way to invite chaos into your day and not get anything done is to tell yourself, "I'll do it later."

Your real estate career doesn't have to be an unpredictable, never-ending daily saga.  If your days often resemble a hurricane of busyness, or maybe you're new to real estate and sit around waiting for your smartphone to ring, ding, or buzz because you don't know what else to do, implement these strategies and start working on tasks that help you achieve more in less time.  When you do, you'll find yourself running your business, instead of it running you.

Here’s to your success.