How To Maintain Work-Life Balance as a Realtor

3 Ways to Keep Your Priorities Straight

I get asked all the time… Jeff, how do you balance your family time while also running a real estate brokerage? It’s definitely NOT always easy, but it’s SO important to me that I make it a priority to prioritize and make it happen. It can be done, so here are a few of my best tips!

1. Live and die by the calendar

Schedule. Everything. This takes some getting used to but making a schedule and sticking to it really goes a long way. You may already do this with your work calendar, but I find that adding your personal appointments and family obligations to the calendar also goes a long way in maintaining that balance. Creating time blocks for every part of your life in your weekly schedule is a great way to make sure everything gets done and everybody feels important.

2. Communication is everything

This goes for communicating with your staff AND communicating with your family. Set the expectations ahead of time what your schedule is looking like that day or that week with your staff and your family so they know where you will be and when. And when thing pop up or change? Communicate that too! Some weeks I’ll have to stay late at the office, and I let my family know that, but that’s okay because they know the next week I may have some extra time to get off a little early and spend some more time with them. And in that same vein, my staff knows when I have family obligations that are going to take priority over work, and we discuss alternate times for meetings so that nothing overlaps. Communicate, communicate, COMMUNICATE!

3. Be flexible!

Ideally, you’d live by the calendar and communicate with your family and staff, but in reality, things always come up or unexpectedly change. And you have to expect the unexpected and leave room for flexibility! Don’t let a last-minute schedule change derail you, just communicate well and adapt. That’s all you can do, and people are more understanding than you think! When a family emergency pops up, meetings can be rescheduled, when a work crisis happens, date night with your spouse may have to take a backseat and be rescheduled. Life happens! You have to allow yourself that space to deal with things as they come.

It takes practice, and an ongoing commitment to making it all work, but it is possible! Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get it perfect every single week. There are going to be weeks that are more work-heavy and weeks that are more life-heavy, that’s just how it is! You’ve got this!