Four Time Management Tips To Make You A Better Property Manager

Whatever you do for a living, time is money. With the right property management tips, you can protect your time and your money. By using these time-saving strategies, you can make your property management business more efficient.

As a property manager, whether you own a block of city apartments or beach property on the beautiful Central Coast, you probably head up a team made up of maintenance workers, outside contractors, in-house office staff, and more. It can be tough enough to manage your own time, but when you manage a property, another person’s problem can become yours, so time management is crucial. 

 

1. Efficient property management must be documented. Property managers should always document interactions with tenants. The best way to become more efficient is to document exactly what you do. This shouldn’t be general records but should include how much time you spend on each project. Write down how much you spend on setting up a listing, answering calls, doing showings, and communicating with contractors. Track a whole week to get a good idea of how you’re spending your time. 
2. Batch your work into blocks of time. To use your time better, stop trying to multi-task and instead focus on only one thing at a time. This can be hard if your company is small, and you’re always trying to deal with lots of different things, so try to delegate where you can to make things easier. Batch all your rental listings into one block of time so you can get into a flow of work. Multitasking isn’t efficient, so stop doing it. 
3. Schedule your time. Without any kind of scheduling system, then your to-do list doesn’t exist anywhere except in your mind. The more things you try to keep in your head like this, the more likely it is that you will forget things or let things slip through the net. It’s easy to get very overwhelmed to remember everything that you need to do. Make a scheduling system, even if it’s just a calendar, so you can think less about everything that you need to do, and can just pay attention to the thing you need to do right now. 
4. Create a system for jotting down notes. How many times a day do you think of something that you need to do? Before you can act on that thought, something happens to distract you, like the phone running, and you completely forget about it. Later on, you can’t remember what the thought was. This is annoying. Create a system for jotting down notes. Carry a small notebook, or use an organizational tool like Evernote, or just the Notes app on your phone. At the end of the day before you finish work, look over the notes you made and add anything important to your scheduling system. This will help you to avoid missing anything important and doesn’t interrupt your day too much when a sudden thought comes to you. You’ll also have peace of mind at the end of the day.