Follow These Exact Steps to Take Control of Your Calendar Every Day

by Steve Shull

Last week, I told you the 7 things you need to do to regain control of your most precious asset—your TIME.

Number 2 on that list was to learn the skill of time blocking.

Time Blocking is simple in theory. It’s nothing more than setting aside fixed blocks of time for specific activities.

And yet, most agents completely fail at it.

So we’re going to walk through it step by step and address all the places where you’re going to want to bail.

Before we do that, let’s be clear about what’s at stake.

Your time blocks are a guardrail to protect your time. They are the vehicle to ensure you’re doing what’s most important rather than reacting to whatever shows up.

Most importantly, they are the barrier that keeps you from chasing deals. 

Time blocking and chasing are mutually exclusive. That’s why most agents fail at it—they insist on chasing, so their time blocking breaks down. The moment a shiny object comes up, their time blocks go out the window.

If you want to chase, you can stop reading right now.

But if you want to commit to valuing time over money—and thereby building a lasting business—here’s how you do it.

Open your calendar to a blank week, and let’s get started.

1️⃣ First, block out your time off.

Pick at least one day a week when you will do ZERO work. I mean no email, no voicemail, no texting, no showings, no dropping by an open house—no business at all.

This is the first place where time blocking breaks down. No agent thinks they can take a full day off and still be successful.

One of the things I say all the time is that real estate agents work 7 days a week because they’re NOT working 5.

This always gets a laugh, but I’m not joking. You waste your 5 working days doing everything BUT what’s really important, so of course your work spills into nights and weekends. Of course you feel like you can’t take a day off.

Time blocking forces you to stop that vicious cycle, and it starts with taking at least one FULL DAY OFF every single week (or more if you want to). There’s no perfect day to take off—just choose what works best for you. 

Be very clear with yourself: if you answer the phone even ONCE, that’s not a day off. Ideally, you should set up automatic out-of-office messages in your email and voicemail to let people know you’ll get back to them the following day.

Even better, set the expectation up front in your Client Discovery Calls. Let people know when you’re available and when you’re not—and if they don’t want to work within that standard, they’re not your client.

Bottom line: NO ONE can work 7 days a week and be effective. So, the first thing to block out is your day (or days) off. You are going to resist this, but you MUST do it if you want to stop chasing and start building a real business.

2️⃣ Next, block out daily personal time.

This includes exercise, meditation, errands, kids, hobbies, friends—anything you do regularly during the week that’s personal in nature. 

Again, this personal time is NECESSARY for you to show up at your best during your work hours. If you don’t block out time for these activities, you won’t do them, and you know it. That doesn’t make you a better agent. In fact, it makes you much worse because you’ll be feeling stressed, guilty, and distracted all the time, instead of focused, energized, and ready to do great work.

Even worse…you’ll end up missing out on your own life.

Now, you don’t have to schedule every single personal task at a specific time. Some things, like school pickups or workout classes, do need a specific time slot. Others, like errands and hobbies, just need enough open space during the week to fit them in. 

That’s what step 3 is for. 

3️⃣ Set a start and end time to your work day.

Every work day MUST have strict time boundaries. Why? Because work will expand to fill the time you give it. 

If you have 8 hours to get something done, it will take 8 hours. If you have 1 hour, it will take 1 hour. If you have 5 minutes, you’ll get it done in 5 minutes. 

How? When you have real limits, you find better ways to do things. Without those limits, you allow yourself to be slow and inefficient. The key to becoming more effective is SHRINKING your workday, not expanding it.

So don’t roll out of bed and immediately check your emails and texts. Set a start time that gives you enough time to truly prepare and bring your best self to the day, and don’t start working before that time.

Same in the evening. Your end time should be no later than 7 PM, preferably 6 or earlier. No work should happen after that time—no emails, no texts, no calls, no nothing. 

And if you think being responsive at night impresses your clients, think again. It’s just unprofessional. It shows you have no boundaries.

“But Steve,” agents always say, “sometimes the deals happen at night.” 

Only because of the agents—not because of the clients. Again, make this part of the standards you discuss with clients up front, and set up auto-responses in your voicemail and email to let people know when you’re available and when you’re not.

I can’t stress it enough: having a very defined work day makes you BETTER in every way, as an agent and as a person. You can’t tell me your family and friends won’t love this—they are sick of seeing you on the phone and the computer when it’s their time. And when you respect your time, your clients will too.

4️⃣ In your work day, block 1 hour every day for CRM. 

One hour a day, 5 days a week, non-negotiable. 

This is your MOST IMPORTANT work activity. I don’t care if you don’t do ANYTHING else. Love it or hate it, it doesn’t matter. This is not a choice.

And I know you can do this successfully because you do it all the time with listing appointments. When was the last time you canceled a listing appointment because you had other things to do? 

NEVER. No matter how busy you are, you’re in that person’s living room at the time the appointment was set. You can—and must—treat your daily CRM time exactly the same way.

5️⃣ Optional: block time for other essential work activities.

The big ones are showing properties and going to listing appointments, but you can block any other activity you do regularly. 

Setting aside specific slots for showings is especially powerful for preventing yourself from chasing. Agents always think they have to drop everything to go show property whenever the buyer wants. 

In reality, REAL buyers (those who are serious about buying now and seriously interested in this particular property) will look when the property is available to be shown. Suspects (those who are just looking and have no intention of actually making an offer) only want to look when it’s convenient.

Same for listing appointments. If they can’t wait for a mutually convenient time, they’re never going to hire you anyway.

That’s it—that’s time blocking the Performance Coaching way.

If you just do this, you’ll be light years ahead.

The challenge is that this is a radically different approach from what you’re used to and what everyone else does…and it’s only going to work if you value time over money.

When you make money the priority, you’re going to do all the wrong things and end up making LESS because you’re developing bad habits that compound against you over time.

Time blocking is a GOOD habit that compounds in your favor over time. It gives you quality of life, makes you a better human being, and elevates your work as a real estate professional.

You’ll fail at time blocking for ONE reason and one reason only…

Because you insist on chasing.

 You know everything I’ve said makes sense. There’s nothing to argue with.

But as long as you keep thinking you just need one more deal…that the next deal will change things…that you’ll be okay after the next closing…you’re never going to time block.

What you don’t see is that your fear of missing out on deals is causing you to miss out on everything else that’s important to you. You think time blocking will cost you money, but NOT time blocking is already costing you your LIFE.

If that’s not a good enough reason to start doing it, I don’t know what is.