What am I talking about?

• Doing viewings?
• Managing a bank account?
• Raising finance?
• Finding deals?

No, not any of these things. Although these are all valid activities you should be doing regularly if you want to grow your property portfolio, but they’re not what I’m talking about today.

I’m actually talking about something that makes all of these happen, almost without you having to think about them. Almost automatically, without worrying whether it’s happening or it’s not happening and the one thing that makes this happen and it’s this – A BUSINESS ROUTINE.

You see, most investors I meet haven’t established any kind of routine in their week that keeps the business growing. Each week appears and they just react! 

They book viewings, take some photos, do a couple of Facebook posts, and then they forget that they should have contacted their bookkeeper, or called back a vendor or replied to an investor.

They act as if everything is URGENT, and they forget about what’s IMPORTANT. 

Is that YOU? Do you fail plan? If we are honest with ourselves, we often fail to plan. But you know that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail don’t you?

It’s so true isn’t it? By doing the things that are URGENT, we so quickly run out of time to do the things that really matter – the things that will make the MOST difference long term to our income. These are the IMPORTANT things – but the things we often treat as being less important. 

There’s a reason why we behave like this. It’s because we believe that fast action creates fast results. So we do what is immediate. We do what is right in front of us shouting ‘URGENT’. But the truth is that is not what makes you wealthy. 

What makes you wealthy is delayed gratification. Doing what’s hard and feels more difficult. Doing what is NOT yelling ‘Urgent’ takes more determination and strength. The other problem we face is that we are OK doing what we’re currently doing. 

We are not starving, or homeless, or aimless. We keep busy and just about managing. 

But in reality our wealth is not growing, our portfolio is stagnant and our complacency is killing us.

So what’s the solution? 

1. Plan your week – take out your diary and PLOT into it one of your IMPORTANT tasks. Do just one of your important tasks per day. No more, no less. Just one.
2. Consider how long that task will take, and if it’s gonna take more time than you have in a day, spread it over two days.(Consecutive days though to maintain momentum).
3. After you’ve completed it, be pleased and proud. Take a ten minute congratulatory break. Dwell on the great feeling that it feels like when you’ve done something tough, but IMPORTANT.
4.  At the end of the week, write down all the important things you’ve achieved and WHY they were important and not urgent, and how they could help you more than doing just the urgent stuff.
5. Now plot your diary for the following week with all the new important tasks that can become a routine, and enable you to know that Tuesday’s are viewings days, or Wednesdays are social media days or Fridays are calling investor days. 
6. Now do the urgent stuff.