My wife and I own two small software companies (similar product, different niches) and have a small cattle ranch. We work from our house and also have a 14 month old son. Being productive is essential for us to manage our work/life balance.
A few things that have worked for us:
1) Hire someone to be on the "front lines" so you can queue your tasks while your business still has timely responses
2) Minimize switching hats throughout the day (marketer to programmer to customer service)
3) Avoid computer distractions
- Remove programs from dock (use QuickSilver instead)
- Remove notifications (menu bar items icons, widgets, growl notifications)
- Remove bookmarks bar from Safari and FireFox
- Remove email notifier and only check 1-2x a day and when you are ready to answer them
4) Plan ahead by creating tomorrow's ToDo list today
5) Separate Google Reader feeds by subject and only read specific subjects when wearing that hat
6) Stop bookmarking URLs and saving code snippets - it will probably be out of date by the time you need it (assuming you can remember where you saved it)
Very good tips. I have to say that bookmarking things saves me hours. I bookmark maybe five things a week and retrieve about 2-4 bookmarks a week. I only bookmark things that would be difficult to search for so it certainly saves me time.
A few things that have worked for us:
1) Hire someone to be on the "front lines" so you can queue your tasks while your business still has timely responses
2) Minimize switching hats throughout the day (marketer to programmer to customer service)
3) Avoid computer distractions - Remove programs from dock (use QuickSilver instead) - Remove notifications (menu bar items icons, widgets, growl notifications) - Remove bookmarks bar from Safari and FireFox - Remove email notifier and only check 1-2x a day and when you are ready to answer them
4) Plan ahead by creating tomorrow's ToDo list today
5) Separate Google Reader feeds by subject and only read specific subjects when wearing that hat
6) Stop bookmarking URLs and saving code snippets - it will probably be out of date by the time you need it (assuming you can remember where you saved it)