To be productive, keep your eye on the target

1.    Don’t think, just do. Unless you are a lawyer (and even if you were), nobody wants to pay you for that quarter hour of thinking in the shower. Thinking, thinking, and thinking will waste your valuable time. Especially when it comes to customer projects. Sure, I have my brainstorming sessions about what I’m going to do and map out my steps ahead of time but then I do the task. It’s as simple as that. Time is money and money is time. Don’t waste either.
2.    Establish billing days and times. Decide from the very beginning how you are going to do your billing. Will you bill upon project completion or will you wait until the 15th of every month to bill or the 1st? Whatever you decide, stick to it and make sure your clients do as well. You are a small business without a large accounting department backing you up, so make life easy and do what works.
3.    Don’t let anything or anyone distract you. Don’t pick up that phone. Next time the phone rings, check the caller ID. If you don’t have caller ID, get it. Phone calls from family or friends, as much as we love them, waste work time. Wouldn’t you rather leave your desk earlier to spend quality time with them later?