You can find so many things competing for your attention when you work. Therefore, you must remember your priorities, especially if you have an important project, which needs to be finished.

One of the most common time wasters for someone who is running a business, especially at home, are phone interruptions. If you are a home business owner, you will understand the pressure that involves when your phone rings. You always feel obligated to answer it. However, answering the phone may be a bad idea, unless it is an emergency.

In this modern day and age with computerized voice mail, cell phones, e-mail, faxes, and caller ID, you should have no excuse for putting off your response to a caller when necessary. You may consider this rude, or a deterrent to clients who want your business, however, in most cases it is perfectly fine to let your phone ring.

Caller ID is probably one of the best tools that you can take advantage of when deciding to not pick up a call when it is ringing. You can see exactly who is calling. You can also, of course, listen to the message to hear exactly whom it is that is calling you.

Another common time waster that eats away from your business productivity is an unexpected visitor. Most people can understand the frustration of having someone show at your home or office when you are midway into a project. Unless it is a client with an urgent need, you need to limit these cases.

If you have a bad habit of receiving unexpected visitors, you may want to set some boundaries regarding these. Some examples of unexpected visitors could include friends, family, and salespeople. One option in dealing with these people would be to make sure they either come during your free hour, such as lunchtime, or to tell them to make an appointment.

If you set a boundary with people only to have them come during certain times, then you will be free to finish your work. One caution regarding this, however, is that you will still have people that will still try to breach your boundary lines.

You will have to be firm with these people who continue to violate your work time. You need to tell them in a professional manner that you would be happy to make an appointment with them they would like, but that you cannot see them at that moment. Sooner or later those people will get the picture and you will have less and less work time interruptions by unexpected visitors.

Other common time wasters that you need to be aware of are extended breaks, excessive socializing, procrastination, not working on high priority projects first, cluttered desk, and more. For example, too many people have a hard time resisting their friends’ urges to sing Karaoke on a Wednesday night, knowing full well they have a presentation due the next day they have not yet started working on.

Another time waster in the business world includes excessive daydreaming. For instance, a person can be sitting at his or her desk thinking about the party they went to on Saturday night or how about sailing on the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s not that it is wrong to have these desires or dreams, but thinking too much about fun and play than working can inhibit your ability to produce when it is time to be working. This is especially true if you have your own business. Besides, the harder you work, the sooner you will be able to realize some of the fantasy vacations that you thought you would never be able to afford to go on.

Not only that, but if you have gone to a party last Saturday night and you want to go again, you can think about making plans after hours to make it happen again. There is no need to consume your workday with thoughts about after work. It can slow you down, so try not to waste too much time daydreaming.

If no matter how hard you try you cannot seem to eliminate any of the time wasters mentioned in this article, it might be time to make some changes. Usually people who do not produce well in their current position or in the business they are currently running usually have lost their passion for it or never really enjoyed it in the first place.

If you have lost your passion for whatever role in a business you play you are a part of it is time to make some changes. Either that or it is time to just get better organized, or just take a vacation. Sometimes after you make some changes, you will find yourself becoming more productive, and the business you run becoming more profitable.

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