This is the kind of overwhelming and exhausting situation I was living in all day long during this professional adventure. I was so busy dealing with unforeseen events that I forgot about important tasks, such as updating the budget dedicated to the work, which I should have done as a real estate investor.

Have you ever felt the same way? Do you often feel like you don't have enough time to complete your daily tasks at work? Do you find that a full day is not enough to get everything done? What would you give to be able to buy extra hours?

These are questions I’ve asked myself often over the past few months while flipping a high-end home with a resale value of over $1 million. Since we all have the same amount of time to achieve our professional goals, why do some people achieve them more effectively than others?

Give up ?

At the end of this particularly difficult day of work, I seriously considered giving up everything. I realized the extent of my mistake: I had worked non-stop, taking on as many tasks as possible. I told myself that by doing this, I would save money. My profit would therefore be greater.

After much thought, I realized that my working method was inadequate. I realized that I needed to improve my time management and productivity. A transformation was therefore essential to maintain my mental balance until the end of the project.

Movement and progress

When I was young, my mother often told me this: "Gabriel, you can run as much as you want in the same place without going anywhere, that's why it's important to use your time well and not confuse movement with progress."

I finally found the solution to my productivity problem in a LMI coaching cohort. In particular, I understood what my weaknesses were as a business leader. I learned that the most valuable resource for success in business is not money or contacts, but rather the effective use of one's time.

Pareto's Law

One of the most important lessons I learned from LMI is the Pareto Law. According to it, 80% of our results are obtained by 20% of our actions. It is therefore important to focus on the tasks that will allow us, little by little, to achieve our goals. However, our first instinct is often to carry out the easiest and most urgent tasks first, such as, in my case, purchasing materials.

This explains why there are days when a project manager is running around putting out fires. However, he will often find at the end of a work day that he has not accomplished much.

It was by applying Pareto's law that I realized how much several daily tasks were costing me...

I then determined my hourly rate as a real estate investor and began to delegate the majority of less expensive tasks, such as renovation work, social media management, accounting, etc. Although this approach was difficult at first and required adaptation on the part of my team and myself, I began to save time. This allowed me to gradually dedicate myself to the tasks I excel at. Little by little, I began to love my profession again and rekindled my passion for real estate.

American Tony Robbins, a renowned author and coach in the field of personal development, said: "Leaders spend 5% of their time on problems, and 95% of their time on solutions."

The art of delegating

I learned a big lesson from this flipping project: it is essential to identify our strengths and weaknesses as an entrepreneur. Successful people know how to surround themselves with people who excel in their respective fields. That is why I am learning to delegate more and more the tasks that are more difficult for me to do. It may seem ironic that I am not a manual person, even though I have been running a renovation company since 2015. That said, my strength is in bringing together and guiding people who are passionate about renovation and who want to create quality projects.

Sure, I felt like I was living a nightmare during one phase of this project. However, it allowed me to grow like never before as an entrepreneur. The difficult times forced me to quickly adopt a strategy to better manage my time and to better delegate tasks to the people on my team. Since I have been applying Pareto's Law to my professional life, I also have more time for my family and friends. I even found the time to volunteer on a renovation project that was close to my heart, called Unis pour l'excellence .

"Once you learn how to manage your time well, you'll realize how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade," said Tony Robbins .

After all, isn't the ultimate goal of good time management to enjoy life to the fullest?