Know your goals: Make sure you’re participating in activities that support your business goals, both short-term and long-term. Anything else is a potential time-waster. Your daily plan should bypass tasks and activities that directly relate to generating revenue and growing your business.

Prioritize smartly: Write down your three or four “important and urgent” tasks that need to be addressed today. As you check off each one, cross them off your list. This will give you a sense of accomplishment and can motivate you to tackle less important things.

Say no: If you have to turn down a request to participate in something that’s truly important and urgent, don’t hesitate to do so. The same goes for any projects or activities that you’ve decided are going nowhere: Be prepared to move on to more productive tasks. Learn from the experience to avoid wasting time later.

Find out where you’re wasting time: Many of us fall prey to time wasters who steal time that we could be using much more productively. Who are your time bandits? Do you spend too much time surfing the Internet, reading email, Facebook posts, texting, or having personal conversations?

Establish routines and stick to them as much as possible:
When crises arise, you’ll be much more productive if you can follow routines.