Deep work is a state of extreme focus that allows you to work faster, smarter, and better than your competitors. You need to devote blocks of focused time to the difficult, challenging work of your real estate business. That means no multitasking, no flitting from one project to another, and absolutely no procrastination.
Deep or Shallow?
According to Cal Newport in his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, every task falls into one of two categories: shallow work or deep work. Shallow work is the boring, rote, routine stuff that you could do in your sleep. It’s also the activity that’s most easily delegated to someone else, allowing you more time to devote to the work that matters.
Deep work, on the other hand, challenges you. It requires supreme focus and skill to achieve. However, that doesn’t mean grinding for untold hours on hard work. The real trick is identifying the most important tasks for your business—the ones with the biggest ROI—and devoted big chunks of uninterrupted working hours to them.
Find Your Most Important Work
What’s the most important thing you do as a real estate agent? “Sell houses!” you say. But isn’t really more about fostering relationships and making connections? You’re connecting the buyer with the seller. You’re connecting yourself to a network of potential clients and colleagues. So your deep work could be focused on growing and strengthening those connections.
If you’re a complete newbie to the real estate industry, your most important task might be learning as much as possible. So your deep work would involve studying on your own, connecting with mentors, and learning the best ways to approach the business from people who’ve already been successful. Deep work depends on where you are in your career and what’s most important to you right now.
Create the Circumstances for Success
To succeed with deep work, you need to take down the barriers that prevent you from getting in the zone. Block out time on your calendar when you will devote your full attention to the task. If you’re constantly distracted in your normal workspace, you might need to move elsewhere. You may also find that what you thought would be your most productive time of day—morning, for example—isn’t the right time for you to dive deep.
Finally, ringing phones and notifications are constant micro-distractions, so during your scheduled deep work block, put your phone on silent and stick it in a drawer. You’ll return those messages as soon as you’re done.
Don’t Push It
Our brains are wired for no more than 4 hours of focused effort per day. After that, it’s all downhill. You can keep working, but you’ll get diminishing returns—and eventually burnout. You need to balance deep work with shallow work (after all, those emails won’t write themselves) and most importantly with downtime. It’s so easy to overwork yourself when you are a real estate agent, so remember to rest and recharge every day.
