Successful Real Estate Investors Do Their Most Important Task First

If you've been in business for any length of time, you'll find that there are more things to do then can be done in any given day, so you absolutely must prioritize to become a successful real estate investor.

The 80/20 rule, also called Pareto's Principle, tells us that a large percentage of our success is dependent on the significant few things. The general idea of the rule is that 80% of your results will come

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from 20% of your actions. While the actual percentages can vary, the idea is absolutely true... you can track a disproportionately large percentage of your results to a small group of very, very important things. For real estate investors, you should learn that you need to stop everything else and make sure that you do those significant few things first each day.

In the Daily Checklist that I use in my own real estate investing business and that I recommend all investors adopt and modify to their own businesses, you will notice that I order the checklist so that the significant few get done everyday by putting them first.

Stephen Covey, author of the classic "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", discusses putting the first things first and also focusing on what he calls quadrant II activities... activities that are important, but not yet urgent that will have a huge positive impact. He discusses moving away from living re-actively dealing with urgent but trivial issues and to focus instead of getting the important things done.

So, for real estate investors what are the significant few that you should focus on? In my opinion, they are, in this order: knowing where you are going by quickly reviewing your goals and then immediately focusing on marketing to make sure you are talking to motivated sellers, buyers and building your dream team. In my opinion, if you focus on marketing to get the phone ringing with the right types of calls, you will naturally, after focusing on the significant few, gravitate toward the next best activities: dealing with sellers, buyers and your dream team (in that order). Those of your familiar with our Daily Checklist will see a similar pattern.