Trying to do too much creates a time crunch. Whether it is the innumerable showings, the scheduling, the billing, or just following up leads, time management plays a role. For most of us, time is most assuredly money.

There is obviously a direct trade-off between your time spent working and the money you earn. But the executive productivity trade-off is also directly tied to the effectiveness of that time spent.

If you often feel drained, lamenting what feels like organized chaos punctuated by minor victories amidst the fray, something is off. Productivity is the shovel that will help you displace that mountain of tasks and responsibilities that are standing between you and real business growth.

But you don’t necessarily need to invest in a complex time management system. Taking just a few steps to develop time management best practices will help you realize meaningful gains.

Focus on goals.

Creating goals gives you lines in the sand that you know you need to pass in order to achieve success. Whether it is a certain number of calls, leads, meetings, or marketing, the important thing is making them clear and documenting them for yourself. The more specific the goal (like a certain number of listings), the greater the chances of you reaching it.

Set deadlines.

Remember those lines in the sand? Well, now it is time give them a beginning and an end. If you make a goal and set it only for some vague and unclear point in the future, you’ll almost never get there.

Establishing deadlines gives you a barometer with which to judge your progress. If a deadline is rapidly approaching and you are no closer to your goal, then you may need to re-evaluate. Anything of importance should be given a deadline, as it holds you accountable for reaching those goals.

Bonus: let other people know about your deadlines and goals, and watch how often they stay on your mind.

Learn to prioritize. Prioritizing what is important pays real dividends. By figuring out what really matters to your bottom line, you can clarify the smaller steps necessary for you to get to your goals.

Stay organized.

The organizationally challenged often over-complicate this, but you don’t need to invest in a complex system or go back to grade school to get organized as an adult. Keep it simple. Spend an hour planning every Sunday and 20 minutes planning every day. Document what you are going to do in a simple list. Then, make a habit of working that list.

Embracing organization and learning to monitor what you are doing allows you to stay productive instead of spinning your wheels without knowing why. Take detailed notes about what you are doing in order to evaluate its progress, whether that is simply making calls or sending emails.

Delegate, combine, and prune.

Now that you are organized and have an idea of what matters, it is time to assign tasks to complete per day. These should be measurable and make sense relative to your goals. As you improve on these tasks, you will be able to see what is holding you back.

Perhaps you need to combine certain tasks, such as monitoring your listings and content marketing so that you are more productive in a small amount of time. As your list of routine tasks increases, you’ll have mastered them and realize that you can practice delegation in the workplace in order for you have more time to do the creative, relationship-oriented work that drives your business forward. A virtual executive assistant can also help you as you achieve your delegation goals and focus on how to grow your business.