Master Your Time: Tips for the Property Manager
We live in a world where the time spent organizing and planning has been reduced from hours (or even days) to mere minutes. The opportunity cost of not using available resources efficiently is now lost time on your hobbies, passions, or with loved ones. As a property manager, you have many responsibilities to maintain your property’s position as one of the best on the market, so don’t get lost in what seems to be a non-navigable sea of information. Read on for some tips on how to transform yourself from a property manager to a master of your time!
Individual Well-Being
Make sure you’re well rested, eat and exercise in accordance to your lifestyle, and be happy doing what you are in life. To accomplish what you want to do, taking care of yourself should be your number one priority.
Make a List of Priorities
This will take some strategizing, but you’ll save a ton of time and money preparing short-, intermediate-, and long-term goals. A property manager can do this by creating a daily, monthly, or annual list, with your highest priorities at the top of each. This way the most important tasks won’t slip through the cracks, and by putting higher priorities at the top you can see the most immediate task to be done. For example, if your property needs some yard maintenance, you can save a lot more money scheduling that maintenance job before further determination of the yard. Money saved = more money for the future = less work = more time.
Group Similar Tasks Together
Similar problems mean similar solutions. By grouping together tasks of the same nature, you save time by not going through each individual process in full for every task. Think about it this way: if you need to go grocery shopping, you aren’t going to go to the store to buy eggs, go home, then back to the store, then back to the store for milk.
Bonus: Focus on one group of tasks at a time. If you diversify your focus too much, you may become distracted and not efficiently solve the problems identified, making short-term solutions for long-term problems.
Use a Calendar
A great way to keep yourself accountable is by keeping an organized calendar. This not only saves time and money by giving yourself deadlines, it’s an important reminder of your goals and priorities for your property. Being ahead of time gives you and your property a competitive advantage over other listings that are not. However, you must make this a habit. If you need a monthly clean, schedule all your cleaners each month for the year rather than on a month by month basis. If you need a weekly open house, schedule each at the beginning of the month. Thus, you become more than just a property manager arduously “managing” – your responsibilities fit easily into your lifestyle.
EveryDoor Bookings Calendar
Use Automated Resources
What makes all the before mentioned tasks so much easier is our access to technology that pretty much does the job for us. You can use automated scheduling for guest bookings, cleaner appointments, meetings, etc. What’s more, many of the apps you can use give you the option of periodic reminders. Others don’t even require much thought, like automatic payment and receipt alternatives. Even speedy ways of communication, such as texting or e-mails, is a great time saver. Keep in mind that your favorite celebrity tweets may not help you too well in your goals and priorities.
TurnoverBnB is a new global platform based in Hawaii, connecting housekeepers and Airbnb hosts. We at TurnoverBnB created a free software tool that allows hosts to automatically schedule their cleaners for upcoming turnovers. The software syncs with your vacation rental calendar and automatically alerts your cleaners to new projects.