Tap into the magic of 3's to focus your action and produce better results. This is simple and you'll find it has a big payoff.

Does your day start with a pretty long list of To-Do Items? Most successful agents have a crazy and undifferentiated list of places where they could or should be taking action. I find the shortcoming is being able to consistently prioritize and make choices that have you take the actions that have the juiciest payoffs!

Here are my 3 tips to easily and effectively producing peak production:

1. The 3 Most Important Activities

   • Each morning, decide what 3 activities will bring the biggest payoff. This likely isn't going to be the squeaky wheels, even though you may need to take care of some of these too! Think of your long term or yearly goals and decide what activities are most aligned with getting you to where you want to be in the big picture.

   • Once you have identified these 3, write them on a post-it note to carry with you all day. Each time you complete something, look at the post-it and take action on the next thing on your list.

   • Base your prioritizing on what you can do today to raise your personal and business success. You may see that prospecting for an hour or planning your marketing for the month are items that will generate future business to keep your pipeline full. You may need to take a class or buy a new software or hardware.

   • If you want, when you complete all 3, you can intentionally pick 3 more, but never have more than 3 at one time.

2. The 3 Next Clients

   • Each week, look over all your possible prospects and determine which 3 are the most likely to move into action. Then focus on helping these 3 move forward.

   • We have a tendency to try to move everyone along, but you will find by narrowing that focus to the next 3 and consciously brainstorming as to how to move them forward, your effectiveness will increase.

3. The 3 Lowest Hanging Fruit

   • What 3 people would be the best to call today? Think about those 20 percent of your sphere that are responsible for 80 percent of your referrals.

   • Maybe it is another business person who can refer clients to you. Or maybe it is contacting a new business person if they are a fit for your target markets and setting up a lunch or meeting to talk about mutual referring.

   • Who can you refer business to today? The cosmic dust you stir up when you refer usually comes back at you!

Keeping things simple helps keep the focus on what makes a difference, instead of just getting the busy work done. Wouldn't you rather be productive than busy? Get out your post-its and choose your three!

Published: January 25, 2006

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Joeann Fossland GRI, LTG, MCC is a dynamic speaker and business coach. Creator of THE REAL ESTATE GAMETM, she provides coaching solutions enhance your effectiveness and life balance. You can subscribe to her free monthly newsletter, attend free monthly telephone seminars, and find out about classes delivered by email and personal coaching by visiting JoeAnn.com or e-mail her at .