Skip to content
Home Blog Real Estate Business Management

How to Grow Your Business By Designing & Executing Systems & Processes

Kyle Zaylor
3 min read
How to Grow Your Business By Designing & Executing Systems & Processes

Several months ago BiggerPockets’ own Brandon Turner was in San Francisco for a week.

We organized a fantastic meet-up in the city and had great conversations with local BiggerPockets members.

During the event Brandon turns to me and says, “Hey, when are you going to get back into writing for the site again?!”

At my own admission, I’ve shifted my focus over the past half year to my new west coast market and business endeavors. Consequently, it’s pulled me away from collecting my thoughts and turning out articles for the site.

Looking back, I realized this was a perfect way to learn from the systems I’ve built in my own business and apply them to my involvement with BiggerPockets.  I’ve learned that systems are crucial for my work and I would suspect they are for you as well.

There are SO MANY aspects of the real estate game that one could focus on, learn more about, and execute on. It’s immensely difficult to keep oneself on track and march towards one’s professional goals.

Simplifying Your Business with Systems is Essential for Growth

One thing I’ve picked up from entrepreneurs both in the real estate industry and other fields is that systems–learned over time–keep one focused, motivated, and in a place where they can effectively measure their progress.

It is so easy to get pulled in 10,000 directions when exploring, starting, and growing in the real estate game.  If you’re in a place where new systems can help you in your business, here are a few ways to build them:

Task Tracking

Whether it’s on a white board, calendar, software, or good old notepad, daily/weekly/monthly task tracking can be very helpful when faced with a monumental to-do list. If you’re inclined to track tasks on your computer or phone, here are a few great resources:

  • Asana – Similar to Wunderlist, this program can effectively organize project tasks with multiple parties.  Starting a business or have a business partner? Try Asana out to keep tasks front of mind.
  • Snail – Mac App that times and tracks tasks on your desktop.
  • Do One Thing – If you’ve got a Mac, Do One Thing could be a useful app for your desktop. This app keeps one task in front of you (via the top of your desktop) at all times.  It’s simple (it reminds you to do one thing).
  • Google Calendar – I’ve got 2 calendars (personal & work) synced to my phone and email.  When I need a reminder of future calendar items on my plate, they are at my fingertips.
  • Google Drive – This is a fantastic resource because you can keep documents, spreadsheets, and notes in the cloud and access them on any device with an internet connection.

Block out Buckets of Time

Our modern work day is a jumbled mess. If you’re like me your day could quickly turn into this if you aren’t careful: meetings, emails, calls, reading, following up, research, planning. With all these competing items, it can be very difficult to properly organize one’s time.

I’ve learned to love organizing buckets of time throughout my day.

Here are a few examples: try not scheduling any calls until after 10am, focus the first 2 hours of your day on your most important project, keep every day after 4pm (when possible) as time allotted to long term goals/thinking/planning.

Organizing my days into buckets has helped keep me sane when I’m faced with so much day-to-day work.

Email

I both love and hate email.  Despite being an effective means of communication it is unfortunately a necessary evil of our modern working environment because it can quickly zap your time and energy.

If you’re faced with a never ending inbox, try this: only check and reply to email at set times throughout your day (maybe it’s 8am, noon, and 4pm).

I picked this up from a developer recently when I got a reply from him. In his signature it read: “I only check my email once in the morning and once in the evening. If it’s urgent, call me at this number: xxx-xxx-xxx.” While I haven’t gone to this extreme in email checking, I thought this was brilliant and I’ve tried to adopt the mentality in my own email habits.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with email, it might be worth a try.

Productivity

Looking for a technique for measuring and improving your productivity? Give these methods a try:

Everyone works at different paces and through different systems.  The above strategies, tools, and techniques may not be your cup of tea. If you’re looking to implement new systems into your day, try testing a few things out. See what works. Then try to build and grow off that foundation.

Properly built systems could help you achieve more in your real estate career.
Photo Credit: drubuntu

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.