Time Management Tips from Beth Azor

“How do you manage your time?”

That is probably the question I am most asked during my bootcamps, workshops, and during individual coaching sessions. My guess is, that since I’m constantly giving a lot of ideas on how to improve skills and habits, people think, “Maybe she knows how to get more done in a day.”?

I’m not an expert in time management by any means but I can provide some tips that have worked for me, and other ideas I have picked up along the way:

Getting Up Early

As of today, I am at day 29 of a 30-day personal challenge. Hal Elrod, author of the book The Miracle Morning, recommends getting up an hour earlier than you normally do every morning and complete six things that will contribute to your personal development and future success. In his book, he recommends we do six things every morning: (1) meditation, (2) affirmation, (3) visualization, (4) exercise, (5) reading positive material, and (6) journaling.

Since I haven’t seen any obvious impactful results yet, I’ve decided I’m going to do it until the end of the year. I want to make sure I give it my all. I don’t want to be like the people who say, “Oh, canvassing doesn’t work,” after doing it only once, so I’m going to double down and look forward to seeing the benefits.
Gary Vaynerchuk said he’s been waking up 30 minutes earlier than normal in the last few months and can’t believe how much more he’s getting done.

When you get an extra 30 minutes to an hour in the day, you want to do something with that time you think would be beneficial to you. I’m not sure the visualization or the affirmations are working for me just yet, so I may substitute it with planning my day or more writing. You can also educate yourself by listening to a podcast or reading a book.

Time Blocking

What is “time blocking”?

If there is a specific time-consuming task I need to get done, I will allot time to it and plow through. For example, if I need to work on Pipedrive (my CRM- which is something you should all have because certainly, that helps with time management!) I will “block time” to input notes. I will set an alarm on my phone for 20 minutes and then you can guess what happens when the 20 minutes is up… Yep! I’m so engaged in the task that I’ll do it for another 30 minutes, which is fabulous. It’s a little mind trick that works for me.

VERY IMPORTANT: While doing tasks, don’t answer phone calls. I put my phone on airplane mode to keep it from ringing while I’m working on something that requires my attention like an LOI or a lease. If you have an office door, close it. Get rid of the distractions. The time you allocate to a task is for that task only.

Top 3

Another trick that works for me is scheduling my top 3. My goal is to get 3 important things done every day. So, the night before, just before I go to sleep, I will put the 3 important things I want to get done the next day on my calendar

9 times out of 10, those things are follow-up phone calls. If they’re on my calendar for 7:30 or 8:00am, I can usually get them done after I drop Mario off at the bus stop. So, by the time I get to the office, either they’re all done, or I’m 2 out of 3. Not bad!

Find More Time

I highly recommend you do this exercise that I lovingly call the “Exercise of Torture” once a year, where you time log all your activities.

Complete a time log of every activity every 15 minutes for one week, starting at 7:00 AM or 8:00 AM on Monday morning until Friday night at 6:00 PM. I’m sure you will see things you shouldn’t be doing, and you should be able to free up an extra 2 to 3 hours in your schedule. If not, send it to me and we can walk through it together and I promise we will find extra time!

Virtual Assistants

We’re presently looking for a Virtual Assistant to log information into Pipedrive for us. When we go to workshops and we collect business cards or postcards from people who want free giveaways, neither Josee nor myself should be doing data entry into Pipedrive. We would rather pay a VA $10.00 per hour to do this. Our hourly rate is too high for that activity.

Are there any tasks that you are doing that you could pay someone a lower hourly rate to do for you?

If you’re washing your car on the weekends and you don’t like it, can you hire someone? Are you still cleaning your house? If your hourly rate is $100 an hour and you can hire a cleaning person for $20 an hour, shouldn’t you be doing that?

If you want to spend more time with your kids, but you’re busy running to the grocery store every other day, then you should be using Shipt or Instacart. I’ve been using Shipt for two years and it literally has saved me 3 hours a week, not to mention the money it saves me from the lack of impulse buying! 😊

So, wake up earlier, list your top 3, do the Exercise of Torture, time block, shut off distractions and leverage your time with other people. Those are my tips for time management. I’d love for you to share your time management tips with me!

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Learn More:

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When Do You Have Leverage in a Deal?

Do Something That Scares You

Get Involved in the Community Where Your Center Is

If you own a shopping center but don’t live in that city, you still need to be deeply involved in the local community. Leasing isn’t just about brokers and listing platforms – it’s about relationships. When you own one, two, or even a handful of centers, I strongly recommend visiting them regularly. Ideally, monthly. Walk the property, drive the surrounding market, and make sure you’re visible in the community. If you truly can’t do that yourself, assign someone who can – your leasing agent, property manager, or a trusted local representative. One of the best things you can do is join the local Chamber of Commerce and get to know the economic development director in that city. These relationships can generate leads and help solve problems. I’ve had deals come directly from chamber meetings, and I’ve had permitting issues resolved quickly simply because I knew the right person to call. When you attend chamber events, don’t just say you have vacancies. Be specific. Instead of saying, “I have space available,” say, “I have a former hair salon space that would be perfect for a barber,” or “I’m looking for a small insurance or real estate office.” Specific requests stick in

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Treat Franchisees Like Mom-and-Pops

One of the biggest mistakes landlords make is assuming a franchise tenant is automatically a strong tenant. If it’s a franchisee opening their first location, they’re essentially a startup—and you should treat them exactly like a mom-and-pop. That means doing full due diligence before agreeing to any deal. First, I require a credit check on both spouses (check your state laws, but in many states a guarantee may not hold if both spouses aren’t included). I also request a personal financial statement, bank statements, and a breakdown of startup costs. If someone tells me they have $30,000 in cash but their bank statement shows $6,000, that’s a red flag—and I’m going to ask questions. Next, I look at cash versus debt. If a tenant has minimal savings and significant credit card debt, that’s a warning sign. Starting a business is expensive, and I want to know they have the financial runway to survive the early months. If it’s a startup, I also ask for a simple one-page business plan showing projected revenue and expenses—rent, utilities, payroll, insurance, marketing. I want to see that they’ve thought through the economics of their business. And if they’re asking for tenant improvement money, I

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Stop Fighting Obstacles, Prospect Around Them

Every shopping center has challenges. Maybe you have an elbow space with no visibility. Maybe a space has limited parking. Maybe prospects think your rent is too high. The mistake many landlords make is trying to convince the wrong tenants to accept those obstacles. Instead, I remove the objection entirely. If I have an elbow space with poor visibility, I don’t spend time pitching it to tenants who rely on impulse traffic. That’s a waste of time. Instead, I canvas businesses that are already operating in elbow spaces in other centers – things like tutoring centers, therapy practices, staffing agencies, or specialty service users. Those tenants already understand the trade-off and won’t see it as a deal breaker. The same strategy applies to parking constraints. I once had a space where handicap spots were directly in front of the entrance, meaning there was effectively no regular parking. Most retailers hated it. But an orthopedic shoe store loved it because many of their customers had handicap permits. The obstacle became an advantage. Rent objections work the same way. If my rents are $30 per square foot, I’m not canvassing centers where rents are $20. I focus on areas where tenants are

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Don’t Always Choose the Big Name Tenant

When you’re deciding between two tenants – a well-known franchise and a local operator – it’s easy to assume the bigger brand is the safer bet. But in my experience, that’s not always true. Many franchise rollouts look exciting at first. They have marketing budgets, strong branding, and lots of buzz. But a lot of those concepts are new, and not all of them survive. I’ve seen plenty of “hot” brands expand quickly, request large tenant improvement packages, and then struggle just a few years later. That’s why I always dig into the financial statements. Sometimes a franchisee with multiple locations looks impressive on the surface, but when you study the numbers closely, the picture changes. On the other hand, a local tenant with two or three successful locations may actually be the more stable operator. I once worked on a deal where the choice was between a major corporate restaurant and a local family-owned concept. My client – who happened to be a CPA and attorney – analyzed the financials and chose the local tenant. Twenty years later, that local restaurant is still operating successfully, while the corporate concept has closed many of its locations. Another factor is tenant

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