In this episode of the Real Estate InvestHer Podcast, hosts Liz Faircloth and Andresa Guidelli explore how women real‑estate investors often slip from intentional, strategic work into a reactive cycle driven by emails, tenant issues, and constant interruptions. They define "reactive time" as the habit of answering the first thing that shows up, which pushes high‑impact tasks—like reviewing property numbers or evaluating managers—aside. To break this pattern, they propose a three‑step intentional‑time framework: (1) choose a single critical priority before the day begins, (2) set explicit response windows and boundaries (referencing Terri Cole’s Boundary Boss), and (3) fiercely protect deep‑work blocks, never canceling them. They introduce the "Done by One" methodology, which centers on protecting mornings for planning and deep work, avoiding meetings before 1 PM, using a single scheduling link, and preparing meeting questions in advance. Additionally, they recommend a weekly "State of the Union" self‑review on Saturday mornings to journal personal and professional performance, identify one personal and one professional issue, and schedule intentional time to address them (e.g., gym workouts). The episode concludes with a promotion for the Strive program—a community‑based framework designed to give women investors clarity, structure, and support—inviting listeners to apply via the show notes. Throughout, the hosts encourage listeners to implement at least one of these actions to shift from reactive to intentional time management.
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Let me say this as directly as I can. If you open your phone in the morning to check one thing and somehow your best hours disappear into tenant issues, property manager updates, and emails that suddenly feel urgent, it may be time to ask yourself, who is actually running your day? Because before you know it, the task you said was important today, the task that would actually move your business forward, gets pushed to tomorrow. So today I want to talk about one simple shift, moving from reactive time to intentional time. And we will give you one very powerful tool that you can use right away. Let's get started. Welcome to the Real Estate InvestHer Podcast, a top 1% show helping women achieve financial freedom by investing in real estate. And now your hosts, Liz Faircloth and Andresa Guidelli. So let's talk about what reactive time actually looks like. Most of us do not wake up in the morning thinking, today I'm going to let my portfolio run my entire life, right? It's just not how it happens. We know that it usually starts with something really small, right? You check one message. You respond to one email, you answer one quick question, you handle one issue. It just feels easier, right, to take care of it. And then another thing comes in and another thing. And before you know it, right, the day has a completely different agenda than the one you originally started with. That is reactive time. That's the definition. And it's not that you're doing nothing, right? You're working hard, you're doing a lot, but you're reacting instead of responding. So here's the question I want you to ask yourself and be really brutally honest. Are you leading the day or is the day leading you? And I see this happen all the time with the women in our community. The more capable and driven a woman is, the more everything starts coming back. To them. Let me give you a super, super simple example. Let's say you have 10 rental properties, right? This week, you know, you need to look at the numbers on one of the properties. You need to decide whether your property manager is still the right fit. Many of us have to deal with that. And you know, you need to document one process that keeps living rent-free in your head, right? Nothing urgent, but all important. Tasks. Then the morning starts. You check your phone, you answer a tenant, you respond to a contractor, you go back and forth with the property manager, and by noon, the deeper work, the important work, has not moved. Again, that is very classic reactive time, and it has a cost. It has a cost. So here's the quick action step to shift this, begin to shift it. I want you to look at yesterday. So look at yesterday and ask yourself, what actually controlled my day? Be really honest. Be brutally honest with yourself. Was it your priorities or was it text messages, emails, problems, and other people's requests, other people's needs? Answer that honestly for yourself. Now let's move into intentional time. And this is the second shift. Intentional time doesn't mean your day is perfect. It just doesn't look that way. No one's day is perfect, but it does mean you stop, you stop letting every text, email, question get first access to you. Okay? Think of it this way. Reactive time says, I will respond to whatever shows up first. Intentional time says it differently. I will decide what matters before the day starts making demands. So how do you actually do that, right? That's the hard part. Here are 3 simple steps to do. Number 1, choose your priority before the day starts pulling at you. Choose your critical priority before anyone asks you anything, before you check messages, before anything happens. Okay? And here's a question to ask yourself so you know what your priority is. What is the one thing that would make today feel meaningful if it moved forward? Ask yourself that question. Not 10 things, not 20 things. One thing. Okay, here's step 2. Decide when you will respond because there will be things you need to respond to. Of course, not everything needs to be answered the second it comes in. So that's where boundaries matter. And if you're someone who struggles with boundaries, you gotta get the book Boundary Boss by Terri Cole. Okay? A must, must book. And then maybe you check messages at certain times, et cetera. You just start to put boundaries up so that you can be intentional with your time. Step 3 is then you're gonna protect the work that matters, like really protect it, fiercely protect it. And it sounds simple, right? So many of us know about time blocking and blah, blah, blah, blah, color coding our calendar, but we do that and then as soon as something urgent comes up, our time block goes out the window and we cancel on ourselves. We need to stop. As women investors, we need to stop canceling on ourselves. So the most important step here is to never cancel on your intentional time. No one's gonna protect that for you except you. So protect it fiercely. All right, now let's bring this into one simple strategy that you can literally use tomorrow. This is all about taking small action so you can continue to grow yourself, your portfolio, and your business. Okay? It's called the Done by One methodology. Simple strategy here, but it's very powerful, right? The simple things tend to be very powerful. This is all about making sure the right things don't get pushed to the end of the line. So practically, it basically means protecting your mornings when possible. So literally, you're gonna use the time for planning, decisions, deep work. You're gonna avoid calls and meetings before 1:00 PM. When you can. That's pretty much the, the key. You're going to move any team, vendor, project meetings to the afternoon when possible. Now here's really important. As you're doing meetings, you're going to create one scheduling link so you're not wasting time going back and forth. And also, when you do have your meetings post-1:00, you prepare your questions before the meeting so it leads to decisions, not just random updates. Okay, so those are two key things when you're having meetings. But Done by 1 is actually you're getting the meaningful work done in the morning. Okay. That's really, really, really important. So again, we're gonna move from reactive time to intentional time. And if you do the Done by One methodology, you will have that critical intentional time to work on your business, to do what you need to do to actually grow the business, not just react to it. And that's how you're really able to grow your portfolio. Grow your business and grow yourself. That is critical. So again, I want you to do one thing as a result of today's episode. One thing. This can be implement the Done by One. This could be getting really clear on where you, you're allowing yourself to react to and where you need to create more intentional time. Something that I do, another, one other quick practical strategy that I do in addition to the Done by One is I have a State of the Union meeting with myself every week. So Done by One is very strategic on a daily basis, or definitely a couple times a week you can do that, right? Or a few times a week. My kind of State of the Union with myself is something I do on a Saturday morning. I always do it on a Saturday morning and I spend about a half hour to an hour really getting clear with myself so I'm not reacting, but it's not just reacting to business. It's actually, I'm trying to avoid reacting to life. So I create this space for myself and I call it State of the Union because it's an opportunity for me to get really honest with myself. I literally do this during this time. I ask myself personally, what is working? I ask myself professionally, what is working? And I jot down whatever comes to my mind, right? I just do some journaling. Then I go to my professional life. What is working in my professional life? What is not working in my professional life? So I really look at both my, every area of my life and say, what's working, what's not? And then I start to do some intentional sort of making some intentional decisions around what isn't working. I take one thing from my personal life that's not working for me. I take one thing from my professional life. For example, a couple weeks ago I was like, you know what? I really need to get back to the gym. I really need to create more time for myself to get back to the gym. I love running. I love working out, but for whatever reason, been very busy, been very, you know, focused on other areas of my life, and I've let that go a little bit. So I said, okay, let me look at my calendar for next week. How can I ensure I put intentional time on my calendar that I fiercely protect with boundaries that I can get to the gym? All right, maybe not every day, but what days could I make? What days are non-negotiable? I am not going to move this time from my calendar so I can create intentional time to take care of my body. So I highly recommend that you start to do a weekly state of the union with yourself and then use the Done by One strategy during the week, a couple days a week, a few times a week. So you can create that space for yourself working on your business, then getting to meetings that are strategic, and then just having time on the weekend to regroup and getting honest with yourself. That is how we move from reactive to intentional. And if this episode hit home, this is exactly why we created Strive, because at a certain point, growing your portfolio alone starts costing you time, money, more than you realize. And it keeps you stuck in the same pattern we talked about on today's episode, reacting to the business instead of leading it. We invite you to stop growing your portfolio alone. Start building wealth with the right community behind you. Strive is a strategic framework that helps women real estate investors build wealth with more clarity, structure, and support. So if you're ready to stop carrying every decision by yourself, Start leading your portfolio with more confidence. Click the link in the show notes to apply for Strive. Thank you so much for listening, and I really hope you do one thing as a result of today's episode.
Thank you for listening. I hope you found today's conversation valuable, and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. And share this with the women in your life that needs to hear it. I'll see you next week.
