TC Tip: What do I do when I get overwhelmed?
Hey everyone! Today’s post is all about how I handle being overwhelmed. Whether you are a brand-new TC or starting to scale up your business or even a seasoned pro, it is easy to have overwhelming days in this role as looming deadlines, urgent requests, and an overflowing inbox can hit you all at once. Rest assured, even I have these days! While it might seem like you can’t take a break for even a second, take a few minutes to go through the steps below and you will be feeling more in control in no time! Without further ado, here are my top tips for ditching the overwhelmed feeling and getting back on track.
Step 1: Identify the cause of the overwhelm. Is it the sheer volume of tasks or new contracts on your plate today? Is it the number of notifications on your phone, email, etc., going off? Is it because you feel all over the place? If we take a second to stop and analyze exactly WHY we feel so overwhelmed, we can be better equipped to tackle it.
Step 2: Address any looming/outstanding deadlines for the day. Usually, we tackle these first thing in the morning, but if for some reason we didn’t (or we are feeling overwhelmed first thing in the morning) let’s get these taken care of so we can at least know all of our deadlines for the day have been addressed. This should make you breathe a little easier right off the bat!
Step 3: Tackle anything that is urgent/high priority. AKA anything that absolutely, no matter what needs to be done before the end of the day.
Step 4: Work on any new contracts that haven’t been started. If you don’t think you are going to have time to do them all, or at least not until late in the day, throw the typical plan of working them in the order they came in out the window. For example - a contract that was executed 3 days ago and was just sent in, is now going to take priority over a contract executed this morning and sent in this morning. We want to do this because the longer a contract has been sitting since execution, the more we risk missing deadlines or cutting it really close. Also, personally, I would prioritize a buyer contract at this stage over a seller because, in Texas, the buyer typically has more upfront, time-sensitive responsibilities than the seller. Use your judgment!
Step 5: Prioritize upcoming closings. Once we have taken care of steps 1-4, we are ready to revisit the rest of our checklist. At this point, we may be feeling pretty good! However, if at this point it is 4 pm and we are looking at our checklist with 50+ tasks still left on it, we may still be feeling overwhelmed and know we cannot get everything done today, but how do I prioritize at this point? Check on your upcoming closings. Work on any outstanding tasks for any files closing in the next 3-5 days. Got those taken care of? Let’s check on any files 7 days out from closing and so on. This helps prevent us from letting any of our pre-closing tasks slip through the cracks.
Step 6: Analyze leftover tasks to figure out your highest priority tasks for tomorrow. At this point, we are probably reaching the end of the day. If you followed these steps, you have most likely taken care of all of your most important items. I recommend finishing the day by combing through whatever is left on your checklist and marking your top priorities for tomorrow. This way, you already have a head start on the next day, setting yourself up to beat the overwhelming feeling tomorrow!
I hope you found these tips helpful! Getting overwhelmed can be all too easy in the crazy world of real estate. Give yourself a pat on the back that you did a great job and at the end of the day, you focused on what was most important and kept those transactions moving!
