The Rested & Rich Real Estate Agent
A podcast for real estate agents who are burnt out and tired of grinding, and want to find a better way to take care of their clients, themselves all while building a rich life. Say 'no' to hustle culture, and find a better way to work. Helping agents get from chaos to clarity.
Hosted by Sumina, a real estate agent with 18 years of experience in the Austin, TX area.
The Rested & Rich Real Estate Agent
Time Blocking Sucks (And What To Do Instead)
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Real estate agents are often taught that time blocking is essential for success, but this rigid approach to productivity doesn't work for many professionals and can lead to unnecessary guilt and frustration. I explore why traditional time blocking fails for certain brain types and offer alternative approaches that respect your natural rhythms while still maintaining productivity.
• Time blocking is promoted by most real estate training programs as a way to create structure in a chaotic business
• This industrial-era approach treats humans like machines expected to produce the same output consistently
• The failure to stick to rigid schedules often leads to feelings of inadequacy and guilt
• Understanding your natural rhythms is crucial—some people work better in mornings, others in afternoons
• Try planning just one week ahead instead of creating rigid recurring schedules
• Focus on tasks that need to be accomplished rather than specific times to do them
• Create buffers in your schedule to accommodate the unpredictable nature of real estate
• Incorporate fun and social elements to make less enjoyable tasks more appealing
• Pair administrative tasks with rewards or do them alongside colleagues for accountability
• Remember that flexibility isn't failure—it's adapting to the reality of our business
If you have a colleague in your office who would benefit from this podcast, please introduce them to it. And if you know someone who uses mindfulness in their real estate practice who would make a good guest, please send them my way—I'd love to interview them.
You can find me on instagram @rested.real.estate.agent, and you can sign up for my newsletter to keep up with upcoming workshops and other offerings on my website www.suminabhatti.com.
Introduction to Time Blocking Struggles
Speaker 1Welcome to the Rested and Rich Real Estate Agent , a podcast that helps you navigate life as a real estate professional , while finding some rest and balance along the way . I'm your host , samina , an agent with 18 years of experience in the Austin , texas area , and I believe there's a better way to do our business serve our clients and not get burnt out . I help agents get from chaos to clarity . So today we are gonna talk about this idea of time blocking and why I think it sucks , but we'll get there in a moment . So if you aren't familiar with the idea of time blocking , it's this concept that you block off the same days and times in your calendar , week after week , and if you repeat those tasks at that set time , you'll have more success in your business than you would if you didn't do that , because , as we know , in real estate it's really easy to get scattered , to be at the whim of client demands , deals that are falling apart , requests for showings , all the things that happen to us in our business . So in theory , it would make sense that time blocking can be a real benefit to us . What we're going to talk about in this episode is why time blocking doesn't work for a lot of people's work styles and brains like mine learning some ways to manage that feeling . And then , of course , I want to leave you with some tools that you can use that hopefully will work for you In real estate .
Speaker 1I have taken in 18 years many different kinds of training programs throughout the years , everything from bold back with Keller Williams this is probably mid 2000s . The ninja training program is probably one of my favorites . I'll probably do an episode just about that . Buffini training . I mean there's just a bunch of things in there that I've done over the years smaller trainings just offered at the board , et cetera and almost all of these had this idea of time blocking . Right , they give you these really pretty little calendars that had these blocks in there . That said , you know , if you block off Tuesdays and Thursdays between 11 and one and this is a time you call your clients and then on Fridays you set up showings and then on these times you have time to be in the field , et cetera . Fridays you set up showings and then on these times you have time to be in the field , etc . In theory that worked great .
Speaker 1So I would leave these trainings and diligently put all the time blocks in my calendar and inevitably Monday would roll around and my brain did not want to follow the plan that was there or just couldn't right . Things came up and I just didn't quite understand how the time blocking was supposed to work . In reality Constantly left me feeling like I was missing the mark , like I was failing in some way , because I just couldn't somehow grasp this idea or force myself to stick to this regimen of make your calls on these days , do your seller reports on these days . And I feel like it also was forcing me to act in a way that wasn't quite natural . Right , it's ignoring the rhythms of not just our business , the flow of my own brain and mind , the flow of the seasonality we have in our industry . And what if I was just so busy one particular week with back-to-back clients or out-of-state clients that I didn't have the capacity for more outward focused client outreach ? Where did these systems honor the idea of trusting my own capacity , rhythm and my own mood to determine what I should be doing ? I want to pause here and say that if time blocking has worked for you and you've enjoyed it and you don't have a problem with it , then this episode is probably not for you . If time blocking works for you . Fantastic . Please keep doing what works . This is really for the people who have struggled with time
Why Time Blocking Doesn't Work
Speaker 1blocking , who have wondered why their brains cannot fall into this habit of doing things at the same time every week , week after week .
Speaker 1Let's start by thinking about who and why did this idea of time blocking even get started ? Who thought this was a good idea ? And I did some research . I didn't really quite find anything totally concrete , but my guess is obviously it came from things like the industrial revolution . Right , there's conveyor belts , there's factories and ways that things have to get done at particular times . There's a number of widgets per hour that have to be produced , and so then that model was just sort of taken and sort of stamped onto our work as we moved into more office work . So it's this very sort of industrialized idea that we are . We can work like machines , we can keep doing the same thing week after week and be producing these results . So one that , as we've talked about , that doesn't work for a lot of brains . And two , there's also the guilt associated with feeling like you're a failure If you can't get your brain to work in that way .
Speaker 1I do want to say that there's also the idea that some of us are more motivated by task-based work versus time-based work . So some people say , if you give me a list of things to do , I'll get them done . I can't really tell you the time I'll get them done , but I know I will get them done . Let's say sellers , for example , and you're telling sellers , I will have a seller report to you every Tuesday with feedback from our weekend showings , with website activity , with open house feedback , et cetera . There is a time tied to a promise that you made to somebody . But for a lot of tasks in our work it's not tied to a time , right ? If I need to pull comps for a buyer or a seller , I just need to get that to them soon , in the next day or two . Whether I do that at noon or 1pm or 3am , even they really don't care . They just want the data relatively soon , right ? It's up to me to determine how that gets done . So that's more task-based work and work styles versus time-based work and work style . So if , again , if the time-based thing works for you , great .
Speaker 1If you've spent a lot of time in the US or other places that have a work structure like the US , this is probably a pretty common way that you're motivated to get work done , block off some time and then do your job in that time . Now what happened is that this left me feeling like I was behind or something was wrong with me , because I couldn't figure out how to make the time block calendar work for me like it did for a lot of my peers , and the trainers were telling me that I should . We've covered the problems of time blocking and why our brain just can't quite grasp the idea of that , and I would see these like just really pretty well-organized calendars from all these training programs , and I so wanted to be like that . My little brain that loves planners and highlighters and pens was just like , oh great , I can make a pretty calendar and put color codes on it , and then I just wouldn't do it . And it left me just feeling with this idea of just guilt and that I'm behind and I can't do things right . So let's talk about what we can do to remedy the situation .
Understanding Your Natural Rhythms
Speaker 1So step number one is to understand that different brains process things differently Depending how old you are . You have gotten to this age of life . Somehow . You have managed to feed yourself and pay your bills and take care of your pets and dependents and whoever else you have Somehow whether you did that by beating yourself up or time blocking it , or doing it in a task based system , your brain has figured out some way to be an adult , right ? So understand that . Don't shame and blame yourself for not liking time blocking if that's not how your brain works . You're human , right ? You are not a machine . The expectation that you should be producing the same output every single week , week after week , month after month , quarter after quarter , is ridiculous to me . So this step is huge because , number one , if you don't can't even catch yourself in a pattern when you're beating yourself up , there's nowhere that we can't work with that , right .
Speaker 1So the first thing is notice . Ah , I'm catching myself feeling like I'm not using my time well , or I should have blocked it off , or I'm not following my calendar , or other things happened that took priority over the other thing I said I was going to do . That is totally normal , right ? That's the nature of our work and that's totally fine . Step one is notice the times you feel that you quote should be doing something . That's it , just notice . Don't change anything , don't try to make yourself be different or force something else to happen . Just say , ah , I'm noticing that , I'm in the should stage of my brain right now . Cool , that's all you're going to do for step one .
Speaker 1Step two you probably have done this in other kinds of programs before is to notice what your natural rhythms are . Are you someone who gets up in the morning and likes your quiet time ? If so , then maybe the morning hours are better spent for you doing what we call deep work , or focused work or admin work right , tasks that will take you some time , like finding comps for a complicated listing . You know deeper work that requires your focus and attention . And maybe it's more in the afternoon that you feel more social and feel more like engaging with the world , and that's where you do your client outreach calls . It may not be on Wednesday , from one to three or whatever . It may end up being Friday afternoons or Tuesday mornings . I mean , you know yourself better . This is why the time blocking also doesn't work , because we're all different , right , we all have different rhythms , different patterns , different lifestyles . If you have kids or you're taking care of elder parents or you have other responsibilities , the times that you may have available to do these things will probably be dictated differently than someone who doesn't have those things . So if you're not a morning person , don't call your people in the morning . If you are more active in the evening , use that time to do things like client outreach and engaging .
Speaker 1So my third tip is to write down
Alternative Task Management Strategies
Speaker 1a list of the tasks you'd like to do every week . For example and this is in no specific order things like yes , I want to be sending my sellers a seller report every week . Yes , I would like to check in with my warm buyers and hot buyers every week just to check where they're at , or every other week and see what's going on . Yes , I want to take a look at the upcoming trainings that are offered at my board of realtors or the title companies and maybe schedule one or two of those a month , right ? So what are the tasks that you want to be doing on a fairly regular basis ? And do not time block them at this stage . What I want you to do is to look at your upcoming week , right , just look at one week at a time not a month , not a quarter , just a week and say , okay , this upcoming week , if I were going to call 10 clients , where in the week do I think this particular week that would fall for me oh you know what . This gap I have on Wednesday mornings might be a great time because I'll be going on a nice walk and I can tie in the walk with calling these people . Next week it may look completely different , right ? Next week it may end up being a Friday afternoon .
Speaker 1Doing these loose time blocks is one way to explore for yourself whether how your brain responds to this . Is it more likely to be more flexible with these ideas than the rigid way of time blocking that most of us are taught ? Now also , you know , some weeks are super heavy , right , there's a lot of time in the field . You're not going to have a lot of time for computer time . That's fine . Notice what that is .
Speaker 1Not every task is going to get done every week , right , sometimes you don't have active buyers to follow up with , like , they're just not there at the time . Or listing reports are pretty easy to pull together because nothing's happening as it is in my market right now . Now , if you've promised your sellers that they're going to get a report every Tuesday with showing feedback , and you have promised something to somebody with a time , a timestamp on it , then that is stuff that you do have to figure out when you're going to do it right . If you're sending your reports out on Tuesday , which is what I do , it's because I want to use Monday to follow up with the showing over the weekend , to look at website activity online to see what's been going on with their listing any open house feedback and compile that together so that I can send it out on Tuesday . So if I'm doing and gathering some of the information on Monday let's say I'm a night owl , I'm fine working , you know , until I hit my stride at , let's say , nine , 10 , 11 o'clock , which some people do , and maybe you want to send that email to them at midnight . Well , you use go ahead and create your email and put all this stuff in there , and you can use the scheduling function in Gmail to schedule that email to go out Tuesday at 10am or whatever time your client thinks . You sent it then , but you got the pieces together over the weekend and on Monday , when you're waiting for the last pieces of information to fill in , use the tools that technology provides us to make this easier for yourself as you can and hold your obligations that you have told your clients as well .
Speaker 1Now , initially , when you start doing this , don't try to plan out more than a week at a time . You may have big projects and goals that you're also trying to work on farming campaigns and things like that which take a lot more time than just 15 , 20 minutes here or there any given week . So , as you're looking at a week at a time , figure out when it works for your routine , your schedule , your flow and your life and see if that is something that you can tackle this coming week or not . Number four just know that things are going to move and shift around as the week goes on . That is absolutely the nature of our business . This is going to help you . You know , not beating ourselves up also frees up a lot of mental space , right ? So beating ourselves up takes up a lot of energy . So if we can stop doing that , we may also find that we just have a little bit more energy and capacity to do the things that we enjoy doing .
Speaker 1If there are tasks that you have to do that you don't enjoy doing , like administrative work , taxes , accounting , organization , stuff like that figure out how you can tie that into a reward . If , twice a month , you want to sit down and review your expenditures , and that's your least favorite task . Can you pair that with , then , a reward of going for a walk somewhere you enjoy , or maybe even partnering up with an agent to say , hey , can we do some co-working together and block off some time to spend an hour sorting through our expenses ? They don't have to see what you're spending or any of that information , but just having someone there , a colleague , to work with you on this
Finding Joy & Flexibility in Work
Speaker 1can really help your brain . Just have some accountability and have some fun right Socializing with a coworker as well . And that feeds into my last point , which is can you incorporate some fun into the tasks in the week that you're doing ? Can you pair up with a colleague to make your calls together ? Can you make your client calls while you're going on a walk , etc .
Speaker 1And really the focus here is what are your natural rhythms ? What is your life like ? Nobody knows that , but you . What time of the day and week are you more in the mode to be outward facing , and when are the times that you're more likely to want to do computer work ? I can't answer those questions for you because my rhythms are probably very different than yours and I challenge you to give yourself spaciousness in your schedule , as you can . Try not to put appointments back to back , right , because there's no room for a break , there's no room for meetings running over , there's no room for traffic things like that in there . So , if you can , you know , try to schedule some buffers into your schedule .
Speaker 1We live in a culture that is obsessed with efficiency at all costs , right ? We have all these podcasts and books and social media posts about the best morning routines , the best evening routines and how to optimize your mornings and all these things . This is part of a larger conversation around the systems and ideas of efficiency all the time , no matter what . But notice for yourself where you can make your life lighter , like lighter meaning you don't . You're not making life more heavy and burdensome than it needs to be , right , your routines are flexible . Your habits are movable .
Speaker 1To recap today we talked about what time blocking is . You know how we're taught it in real estate and what problems I have with it and why it doesn't work for many types of brains , right , and it doesn't honor our natural rhythms . It just doesn't work for a lot of us . We talked about some tools , of what you can do about that . Number one was obviously stop beating yourself up right . Number two is finding your own natural rhythms . Number three was just writing down a list of tasks you'd like to do every week no specific order and then sort of figure out where those may fit in a week at a time . Number four is do not try to plan out more than a week at a time ,
Key Takeaways & Episode Closing
Speaker 1knowing that things are going to shift as a week goes on . And then , lastly , incorporate fun into your week . You know your rhythms . You know what works and doesn't work for you . Work with that , not against that .
Speaker 1It took me years to sort of learn that and get out of this mindset of you know what time blocking isn't for me and I'm just not going to bother with it anymore . I don't care how pretty the planners look , I'm not . That's just not not for me . So I hope you enjoy this episode . Um , it's been some . It's been a topic that's been on my mind for a while about time blocking and how it doesn't work . Um , I appreciate you . Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the rested and rich Real Estate Agent . As I've mentioned before , my podcast is still relatively new . If you have a colleague in your office that you think would benefit from my podcast , please introduce them to it , and if you think of someone you know who would be a good guest on my podcast that uses mindfulness in their real estate practice , please send them my way . I would love to interview them for my podcast . Thank you again . So much , and be well .
