How to manage your time effectively

There have always been 24 hours in a day. But nowadays, mortgage pros have to manage a lot more issues in that time frame

How to manage your time effectively
You've heard it all before – we all have the same twenty-four hours in a day; the difference lies in how we use them. Time management has been a constant subject in leadership at least for as long as books have been written. There is no shortage of material out there stressing the importance of how you spend your time. Time management is nothing new.

The amount of time in a day isn't new. What is perhaps new, though, is amount of things we as leaders must fit into that narrow time frame. Today, we are bombarded with more legal issues, economic issues, sociopolitical issues and information issues than ever before – and we're managing it all within the same twenty-four hours we've always had. So how do we cope? Although this is by no means an exhaustive list, I suggest three things...

First, you'll manage your time more effectively if you have a working plan. Never show up to work flying by the seat of your pants. Know what you're going to do before you get into the office. Your plan may change but, for the occasions when it doesn't have to, save time by having one to begin with.

Second, you can manage your time better with proper delegation of responsibilities. You might have the same amount of time you've always had; you may even have the same amount of people. But you can always be more efficient at determining which employees do which tasks. Putting your "aces in their places" can save you time by getting everyone into the roles in which they are most efficient.

Finally, while this age of information overload has given us many burdens, it has also given us one huge blessing. You can easily become a better manager of your time by employing the appropriate technology. In the mortgage industry, countless innovative vendors have been working diligently to create applications to help us better manage our businesses. If we can bring ourselves to take on the challenge of adopting some of these technologies, it might just begin to seem like we have more time in the day after all.