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Three Sure-Fire Steps to a More Focused Workday

This year Staples Inc. released a survey that revealed small business owners are the world's savviest multitaskers. About one in five respondents admitted to reading work-related materials in the bathroom, while nearly half said they work while driving. Moreover, 21 percent said they work while eating dinner four to five times a week.

Sound familiar? Here are three steps to a more focused workday.

Learn to delegate. "Small business owners have too many hats to wear and not enough heads to put them on," says Jim Blasingame, host of "The Small Business Advocate Show," a nationally syndicated radio program. "Part of the solution is getting organized, but even more so, it's knowing when to delegate."

Delegating can take many forms. It can be done through technology -- for instance, using a PBX system to handle incoming phone calls -- or through hired help. Blasingame says to start by identifying the tasks that only you, the business owner, should be doing, and then piece-meal the rest to others.

"Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good," he says. "You may want it done a certain way -- what you consider to be 'the perfect way' -- but the important thing here is getting the job off your plate. As long as the results meet your standards, that's what counts."

If you don't have the talent on staff, consider outsourced help. "Let people who are really good at payroll or designing brochures do it for you," Blasingame says. "More often than not, they can do it more professionally, accurately and efficiently."

But proceed with caution. Don Aslett, small business expert and author of How to Have a 48-Hour Day, says to check references, get a price up front, and never pay in advance. "It only takes a few calls to uncover information that will influence your decision," he says."

Don't let e-mail rule your day. If you're not expecting an urgent e-mail, turn off your e-mail and make a habit of checking it at scheduled times throughout the day. Or, do what Adryenn Ashley does: Lay down the rules! Ashley, a self-dubbed "parallel entrepreneur" who operates 16 small businesses in San Francisco, tackles e-mail with multiple accounts in Microsoft Outlook. For instance, she has accounts dedicated to sales, general information, media requests, and so forth. She then creates rules to direct incoming e-mails to matching subfolders.

"What's easier: digging through 800 e-mails in your inbox or going directly to your sales subfolder to see that you have 40 new requests for product?" Ashley says. "I also set up rules so that important e-mails -- for instance, those from my personal assistant -- get forwarded to my Treo. This keeps me in touch but out of the minutiae, and it lets me focus on what makes my businesses money."

Make meetings matter. Reserve meetings for brainstorming and problem solving. If you need to debrief your employees, an office memo or e-mail oftentimes does the trick. Also, conduct meetings in a designated space with minimal distractions. Save relationship-building for lunches and the golf course.

In the end, Marshall J. Cook, author of Slow Down and Get More Done, says it's not about finding time, but making time.

"We never seem able to 'find time' for those important, but not urgent, activities. Stop looking. You'll never find time. It isn't lost. You're living it," he says. "You have to make time by taking it away from one activity and giving it to another. . . . Otherwise, you may not get to them, and even if you do, you'll give them only your leftover time, when energy and focus are at their lowest