Getting persistently drowned in emails? Dreaming about an extra third hand?  Dreaming about an extra eight hours a day?

For entrepreneurs, running a small business often means being everything to everyone. So, when does one really have the time to do any real work?

There are countless studies done on how much time a company can waste and the results can be rather shocking.

According to a year-long average of a large technology company, a study done in North America revealed that their employees were spending 44 hours in meetings per week, 46 average attendees per meeting, and 44 hours of e-mail per week. 

But, what’s interesting is that many successful small-business owners have become defacto experts in productivity, here’s how:

1. Firstly, hiring the right people
   Hire, and surround yourself with people that you can confidently delegate to.
   
   
   
2. Moving ahead and establishing a concentrated focus
   One just cannot take away that productivity stems from concentrated focus which wards away time wasted. As an example, at the end of the day you could encourage your team members to reflect on the successes and challenges they experienced on that day or week, and write down the five top priorities for the next day that must get done. When you share a success report on the status of a project or identify obstacles and challenges, you are creating a focus with your team members to remain productive and accountable.
   
   
   
3. Setting up email rules to maintain sanity
   Answering to email messages can cut into your productivity. This simple tip helps with prioritisation. Answer all messages; however, you can set up an email policy that limits response to any email to just four or five sentences. By analysing your team's email habits you can institute policies which will help create optimal value.
   
   
   
4. Blocking out distractions with technology
   One of the easiest ways to waste time is by getting lost in meaningless distractions.This could be due to coffee breaks, water cooler conversations, fag pauses and phone calls, etc. While not everyone can concentrate on concentrating, with the help of, for example, a background running application like RescueTime you can measure how you spend your time so you can make better decisions. Get Concentrating is another useful tool that helps you focus on important tasks by temporarily blocking social media sites.
   
   
   
5. Managing meetings in a crisp and productive fashion
   Meetings can be time vampires. Start by reducing 20% of meeting time and as a result you would encourage smaller, shortened and fewer meetings, saving up hugely on time, leading you to manage time effectively. By this, you focus on more important tasks and are more alert in a real-time fashion.
   
   
   
6. Measuring and rewarding productive work
   Keeping a tab on results and appreciating employees whenever you think they have excelled in achieving their targets will create a sense of achievement among other employees, encouraging them to cut down on idle breaks and concentrate more on performing.

Working smart always equals to employees’ maximum productivity. What’s important is to find a balance where a right culture is set that aids employees in understanding their workplace in a better way and using their time aptly and judiciously – practices, which would mean everything to your company’s success.