There are only so many hours in a day, and loan officers striving to grow their businesses need to maximize every one of them. So, if we know our time is limited, how can we use that time most effectively? It comes down to productivity. When we set ambitious goals for ourselves and our businesses, we can’t allow anything to keep us from being as productive as possible in pursuit of those goals. It doesn’t matter where your level of productivity is now, there’s always room for improvement. Here are some ideas to ensure you’re firing on all cylinders:
Get (and Stay) Organized
Being organized gives us a very solid foundation for productive work. Start by assessing your physical environment. Make sure your office and desk space are tidy and neat. This will not only save you a great deal of time when trying to locate the things you need, it will also help you minimize the distractions that can come from clutter. After that, your schedule and to-do list need a look. You want a schedule that’s easy to read, and one that only includes the things you realistically plan to accomplish. Beginning each day with an overflowing schedule is never helpful. Then, evaluate your digital space. Is your desktop a jumbled mess with documents everywhere or do you have a folder system in place? You email inbox should also stay organized. Moving anything that doesn’t require your immediate attention to appropriate folders can help you stay focused and clear on the tasks at hand. High-level organization will help you work more efficiently, and keep you from wasting valuable time searching for the documents and messages you need.
Identify Your Distractions
As professionals, none of us knowingly allows anything to steal our time. We can’t avoid or eradicate the things that distract us until we know exactly what they are. If we really want to get a handle on distractions, we first need to understand them. Start by being aware of anything that steals your attention from the task at hand. When we can pinpoint some of the prime offenders (like chatty colleagues or social media), it becomes much easier to put strategies in place to avoid them and preserve our productivity.
Multiply Your Time
In today’s digital age, it can feel seemingly impossible to get in front of enough clients each. Online lead aggregators and call centers spend millions in advertising just to get in front of your clients first. Fortunately, we can also leverage similar technology to multiply the time we have to do new outreach every week. Implementing automation through our CRM’s and data management allows us to stay in touch with our past book of business in more efficient ways. And adding things like a consumer-friendly point of sale can save us time by gathering majority of our upfront paperwork and applications. There is no shortage of technology available in the mortgage industry or for the sales industry as a whole. Having a proper prospecting and follow-up plan will help you choose which pieces of tech are right for you.
Use Time to Your Advantage
Productivity has everything to do with how we use our time. To improve our productivity, we need to use time to our advantage (for some time-management strategies used by successful entrepreneurs, go here). Designating small blocks of time can be an effective strategy to maintain focus. Maybe you commit to working on a project for a set amount of time with absolutely zero distractions. Or perhaps you set a timer when you’re using social media for marketing, keeping you from getting sucked into that time-draining vortex. Setting aside blocks of time where we focus on one thing almost always increases our focus and concentration. Having windows dedicated to similar tasks can also be of benefit to our productivity. Instead of letting a constant stream of emails interrupt your work, consider blocking out a few windows throughout the day where you address your inbox. This gives you a more efficient way to tackle that type of task, and helps keep it from turning into a distraction.
You don’t need an immediate overhaul to see an increase in your productivity. Start small by addressing one or two things this week. After that, you can address the next and so on. Even minor adjustments in the areas I’ve covered will provide significant results.
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