Yes, You Can (and Should!) Take Time Off
Are you living a successful life, but can’t find time to stop long enough to catch your breath? That is a disconnect even successful agents are prone to experiencing. At issue is the fact that many entrepreneurs are so busy building, that they never take the time to rest and recover. But, in reality, it is critical that they do so. KW MAPS Coach Jordan Freed and VP of Learning James Shaw sat down to discuss this disconnect and outline an action plan for agents and leaders to use in being intentional about regularly taking time off.
“Success shouldn’t be determined by how many homes you sell, but by the quality of your life,” says Shaw. In order to encourage agents to focus on the quality of life and take their time off, the pair introduced a strategy known as 1-3-7. Developed by Freed, the 1-3-7 is a quick way to describe the idea that hardworking agents should plan for one day off each week, one three-day weekend each month, and one seven-day vacation each quarter. It may seem backward to start with planned time off and schedule work around it, but, according to the pair, that is a key step in constructing a life worth living.
Slow Your Hustle, Accelerate Your Business
If you are trying to move your business forward, Freed emphasizes that it’s not about managing time, it’s about managing energy. “People have big goals for working, but they don’t have a recovery plan,” he says. “If you think about elite athletes like marathon runners who train over a period of time, you’ll discover that performance and recovery are equally important. What I repeatedly see is that entrepreneurs do not take recovery seriously. That was the catalyst for 1-3-7. I want agents to think of themselves as corporate athletes, to strategize their time off in order to win.”
Freed adds, “When I hear that someone routinely puts in 16 hours a day, all I think is that they’re wildly inefficient, or there is something that they’re hiding from. If you feel like you have to work that way to attain your vision, analyze what skill or habit you need to gain to have a more sustainable schedule that allows you to win in every area of your life.”
The Right Habits Lead to Freedom
Implementing the 1-3-7 strategy to time off requires you to be, as Shaw sees it, “unbelievably efficient in the time that you are working, so that you don’t get lost in the weeds or get distracted.”
To design your days with freedom and flexibility for time off in mind, Freed and Shaw recommend:
Identify your keystone habit.
Ask yourself: Where do I want to go and what singular habit can I add or fine-tune to ensure that I get there? Freed probes, “When we’re talking about the 1-3-7 or increasing performance in shorter amounts of time while still getting the output, it’s going to boil down to your habits. What is the habit that you need to identify and instill such that by doing it you can make a million dollars only working 40 hours a week?”
Another way to explore which habit you need to instill is to ask yourself a question Freed examines with his top-performing clients: What is the one thing that if you get it right, you can get everything else wrong and still win? Freed offers, “A keystone habit in any agent’s business is listings taken. If you nail that number every single month, without fail, you will have a profitable business that you don’t have to work yourself to death to maintain.”
Related reading: 20 Lead Generation Ideas for More Listings
Plan accordingly.
No matter what your goals are, or the keystone habit you are nurturing, the first thing you should do is schedule in all four of your seven-day holidays. Then, work backward. When will you take your three-day weekends each month? Will you take off a set day each week or will you mix it up? Safeguard those days on your calendar now. “Mapping your time is just like budgeting your money, because money and time are synonymous. If a budget is telling your money where to go rather than wondering where it went, then a 1-3-7 is telling your time and energy where to go rather than wondering where it went,” encourages Freed.
Keller Williams is about having a life worth living. Proactively taking time to recharge is a crucial strategy for making that happen. When you renew your energy, you’re more effective when you’re working; and when you’re more effective, you’re more likely to hit your goals.
