Every new month brings with it a host of possibilities for your real estate business. And with this new year, you have the opportunity to transform and elevate your business over the course of 2020.
And here’s where you’re going to start…
You’re going to pull five hours out of all of the work that you’re doing in your business every week. And, you’re going to use those five hours to concentrate on more high-impact activities.
Instead of focusing on the minutiae, you’re going to look at the big stuff that allows your real estate business to grow.
So how are you going to do that?
You can start by cleaning up all of the rubbish that’s inside your business right now. And the fact is, there’s rubbish in almost every area of almost every real estate business.
Right now, you’re likely wasting your time on lots of little things that just drain your energy. And this stuff will only get worse as you scale. All of the rubbish inside your business will make it harder for you to get to where you need to go.
By clearing the rubbish, you minimise.
And you need to minimise before you can elevate.
It’s crucial that you streamline your business so that you can focus on the most important things.
I’m going to share an exercise that will help you minimise so that you can elevate your business. But first, let’s look at the problems you face while trying to elevate.

The Problems
The biggest problem that many real estate business owners face with elevation is that their plans get derailed.
They have these grand plans in place that they intend to execute over the course of the year. But things keep getting in the way, and the plan eventually falls by the wayside.
I think one of the biggest problems here is that we often think a little too short-term with our visions. Planning only for the next twelve months makes it easier for us to put things off.
You may even find yourself saying, “I can leave that until next month.”
But if you plan for the next three to five years, it’s a lot harder to derail your efforts to elevate.
The second key problem with elevation is being in reactive mode. This is especially true when your plans get derailed. So instead of getting back on track, you start reacting to every problem that arises.
This means that you become a victim of both your business and the marketplace. When you’re always reactive, you’re living what I call a commodity-based life. That means you do the same things as everyone else, instead of looking for ways to create value in what you do. 

The Opportunity
So, what’s the opportunity available to you if you focus on minimising inside your business? The most important is that you give yourself the chance to do more high-impact work.
Think about what you’re worth inside your business right now.
If you could apply an hourly rate to the work you’re doing, what would it be? With that hourly rate in mind, start looking at all of the little tasks you’re doing. Odds are, the value of those tasks isn’t going to line up with the hourly rate you’ve applied to yourself.
Minimising allows you to ensure your real estate business gets the maximum value out of your work. That means you’re not getting bogged down with all of the little tasks you could be paying others to do.
Just as important, minimising gives you the chance to simplify the processes inside your business. Here’s an example of what I mean:
A few years ago, I started running marathons because I wanted to develop my personal discipline. At first, I’d just leave my running clothes in the closet. That meant I had to rifle through a bunch of drawers to get my hands on them each morning when I woke at 4:30 am.
Eventually, I started leaving the clothes at the end of the bed, ready for me to grab when I woke up. That made it much simpler for me to just get up without wasting energy and thinking time.
See how a small process I created allowed me to get up and moving faster? By minimising the steps required to get my gear, I made it easier to reach my goals.
That’s what you’re going to achieve when you minimise inside your business.
There’s a lot of ideas that I can share for minimisation. But I want to tell you about a simple little exercise that will go a long way towards helping you streamline your processes.

The Minimisation Exercise
I want you to think about all of the things that make up your daily routine. Specifically, you need to think about all of the things that take up your time right now.
What do you read in the newspapers?
What are you listening to?
Who do you spend time with?
What do you say “yes” to and what do you say “no” to?
What are you wearing?
What are you drinking?
Where do all of your email notifications come from?
Ask yourself all of these questions and write all of the answers down. What you end up with is a big list that makes up your entire day.
Now, go through that list and mark out all of the things that can be eliminated. Mark out all of the little things that distract you or pull your attention away from doing high-impact work.
That’s the stuff you need to cut out.
And now that you’ve minimised, you’re going to find that you have some spare time to spend on activities that will make a big difference in your business.
The most important thing with this exercise is that it’s not a one-time thing. I recommend checking back in once a month for a good 12 months or more until your ways become like brushing your teeth. This allows you to continue to minimise all of the little things that eat up so much of your time.

Minimise to Elevate
The key point here is that your day is probably filled with a bunch of distractions that you don’t need. This is all of the rubbish that clogs up your head and takes up your time – time you could have otherwise spent on growing your business.
The goal with minimising is to clear all of that rubbish out. By getting rid of it all, you give yourself more time to spend on the activities that will elevate your business.
This is one step of 10 that live inside our ‘Elevation System’™.