Tell me if this story sounds familiar.

You get to the office at 7:45am on Monday morning.  The first thing you do is to open your email.  A few minutes later you get a call and then dive into your weekly staff meeting.  The next thing you know, you look up and realize that it is 4:30 on Friday afternoon. Exhausted, you wonder, “What just happened?”

Unfortunately, this narrative is far too common in the life of a small business owner.  You wear so many different hats and have so many different responsibilities that most days are a blur. The result is often a whole bunch of activity but very little achievement.  The worst part is that come Monday morning you just repeat the routine hoping that this is the week you finally make some measurable progress.

It doesn’t have to be this way. You can change this pattern and the good news is that it doesn’t require a Franklin Planner™, an iPad™ or an executive assistant. Intellectually speaking, the solution is simple.  However, like most challenges facing the small business owner, changing your behavior is hard.

For the last eight years, I have helped hundreds of business owners implement a straightforward solution for managing their time that is guaranteed to work.  All you need to do is follow these simple rules.

First, set aside fifteen minutes on Monday morning before you open your email and write down a list of the activities/projects that absolutely must be completed by Friday at 5pm.  This is a short list of critical items that will help you to achieve your goals (if don’t have goals, go read my last column). Keep this list in front of you so that you can refer to it throughout the day.

Next, buy a nice journal that looks different from every other notepad in your office.  Use this notepad to document the many “to-do’s” that pop up throughout the day (a Post It® note is not a to-do list). The items that make it to list are the simple activities (call a client, send TY note, and download a relevant podcast) that most people assume they will just remember.  Unfortunately, most people recall this “to-do” at 3 in morning.

Finally, limit your email correspondence to no more than 4 times per day. There is a significant amount of research indicating that keeping your email open and checking it sporadically throughout the day is killing your productivity.  The reason is that these interruptions, although minor, distract your train of thought and it takes a long time to get it back.

I very much doubt that I am the first person to suggest that you should plan the week in advance, keep your to-do’s in one place and limit email interruptions. Sadly, very few people practice these simple habits on a regular basis because they don’t deliver an immediate result.

I guarantee that if you develop these simple habits you will see a significant change in your life.  You will feel more in control, make better progress towards your goals and feel less stress.

As with just about everything, it’s your choice.  Choose wisely.