Photo by Highline Property

Are you struggling to manage your time within your HMO business? There’s a real skill in mastering time management. As business owners, we’ve all got a lot on our plates personally and professionally, and there are certain things that none of us really want to compromise on… So, we all need to learn how to manage whatever time we do have really effectively.

Most people think that building a property business quickly is all about how much cash you can get your hands on and how many deals you can do. While those are both important, most people struggle to get results quickly because they get in their own way and fail to prioritise and manage their time!

Of course, there’s a lot to get our heads around when building a HMO business in the first place, but if you don’t effectively manage your time, you’ll struggle to get the results you’re looking for. Read below or listen to the full episode on The HMO Podcast for eight methods to help you improve your time management and build your property business quickly!

1. Create a priority matrix.

For starters, put everything on your to-do list in a priority matrix. It’s key to recognise what’s most important and what needs to sit above or below other things. Now, you are ultimately in charge of this, but this will help you determine what needs to be done in what order.

You’re not going to be able to do everything that’s on your priority matrix, and every single day the matrix will change. Some tasks will ultimately get bumped off the list and will get kicked down the road. But if it’s not as important as the other activities, then that’s fine.

One of the things that we’re all inclined to do is deal with the easy tasks first. But using a priority matrix every day and spelling it out so clearly for yourself will help you determine what you actually need to be prioritising!

2. Put everything you can into a scheduler.

Use a CRM system to do this, especially if you’re collecting a lot of information about people or properties. It will really help keep you organised and allow you to manage certain parts of your HMO business.

There might be a small investment to get a CRM system in place. However, a lot of them have free options like HubSpot, Asana, and Monday. Asana even allows you to create and manage your priority matrix in its system, and you can add notes to each task too. This can help you avoid forgetting anything and keep on top of all of your tasks and where you’re at with them!

3. Always tackle the big, difficult tasks first.

Before you do anything else, focus on the bigger, more difficult tasks – not the emails that are easy to fire off. The important tasks are frequently the sort of thing we really don’t want to do, and they can often get kicked down the road.

I like the analogy of stones and sand in a jar. If you fill a jar with a pile of sand first and then try to get numerous rocks in, you’ll find that not many will fit in the jar. But if you put all the rocks in first and then put the sand on top of it, the sand fills in the cracks. So, start with the big tasks, and then, move on to the easier ones.

4. Implement systems that drive efficiency.

When implementing systems, make sure you use the right ones that help you drive efficiency in your business. There are lots of systems out there, but sometimes it can make people feel like they’re doing more than they actually are.

If you’re building an email database, a good system you could implement is an email marketing service to automate your emails and have a sequence so certain people receive a particular email depending on what they click or read in your emails.

We also use Microsoft SharePoint because I like the way that some of their forms work, and we utilise some of their other programs. It’s also helpful to have systems for managing tenant data, deals, and contacts, in addition to collecting rent.

Once upon a time, we didn’t have these systems in place, and we were incredibly inefficient. I remember being reluctant to research and implement systems, because it took up a lot of time. But it’s been so worth it. So, whatever systems will help you be more efficient, get them into your business now and grow into them!

5. Set yourself and your team clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

If you have anyone on your team who doesn’t have clearly defined roles and responsibilities, doing that should be at the top of your priority matrix. But do this for yourself as well. As the business owner, what is most important for you to do?

Write this down on paper to help make it more tangible, and then you’ll be able to hold yourself to account. As a business owner, you should likely be working on strategic development, marketing, sales, service improvements, managing your team, and whatever else is important to your business.

Make sure you also periodically come back to this. If you find that you’re doing other things that aren’t included in your roles and responsibilities, ask yourself whether you need to make a change. Do you need to accept that that’s got to be on your list or should that be on somebody else’s list?

6. Eliminate, simplify, delegate, and automate whatever you can.

This is a technique we can apply to anything we’re doing in our HMO business. But as business owners, we’re often guilty of over-complicating things and giving ourselves more work than we really need to be doing!

So, with that in mind, can you eliminate any of what you’re doing that’s not genuinely bringing you results? If there’s something that isn’t doing anything, then you should eliminate it. And a good example here is social media for a lot of people, particularly if you don’t have a strategy or specific goals in place.

Then, look at what you can simplify. Have you added too many layers to something? What can you strip out? Are there systems on top of systems that actually create more work for no better results? Find ways to simplify your processes and systems to save you and your team’s time.

Next, look at what you can delegate. What can you give to other people? Delegate things that you’re not as good at. And finally, check if there’s anything you can automate. What can you switch on so that it just happens automatically? There are so many systems, processes, and clever software out there to help you with this!

7. Avoid distractions.

This is a really simple one, but so many of us spend too much time on things that really aren’t doing us any service whatsoever. Social media is of course the big one. If you find yourself seamlessly scrolling on social media when you should be working on your property business, you really have to ask yourself whether you are cut out to build a business.

You need to be very rigid with this and avoid any distractions. Turn your phone off or put it in a different room. Switch off all of your notifications, including your email, so you can get into deep work and tackle your priorities. This is how good businesses are built!

8. Protect your social time.

This is so incredibly important and should be non-negotiable. For me, this includes walking my dog Hugo every single day, going to the gym, and spending time with my family and friends.

Of course, there are limitations, but I have the parameters. I reserve weekends and evenings for social activities. I won’t be working after 7:30 pm unless there’s a genuine emergency or maybe when I’ve been on holiday for a few days and there’s going to be a bit too much work to do when I get back, I can make a compromise and work some.

But I recommend being really structured with your social time. Personally, if I’m not doing the things I enjoy, I start to get irritable and stressed, and then, my productivity drops. I won’t be getting anywhere near the results that I want or should.

These eight tactics will allow you to manage your time better and help you achieve more in your HMO business, which is really valuable!

For me, doing a combination of all of these has been hugely important to the success of my property businesses. And it’s really important even at the very early stages of building a business to have this sort of structure and good practice in place.

For more advice on improving your time management, join our Facebook Group The HMO Community and ask for tips from fellow HMO investors. And if you want to take things in your HMO business to the next level, become a member of The HMO Roadmap!

About the Author:

Andy Graham is the founder and the lead trainer at The HMO Roadmap! He is also the co-founder of The HMO Mastermind and Smart Property, a specialist HMO property investment and management company. He writes as a regular columnist in different magazines about a variety of HMO topics and is the host of The HMO Podcast! Follow Andy on Instagram!