1. Use Goal-Setting to Push Boundaries

Goal setting can be a great way to clarify your focus, measure progress and track achievements. And for the most successful among us, goals also present an opportunity to push the lines of your comfort zone and take calculated risks. Creating a plan for this growth in the form of long- and short-term goals, a business plan or even single targeted tasks can help your business reach new levels of success.

2. Focus on Customer Service

Being able to retain desirable clients plays a significant role in the continued success of a small business. Not only does having regular customers mean regular income, but happy clients can also provide powerful word-of-mouth marketing.

3. Increase Productivity

The more effective you are when it comes to completing the day-to-day business management tasks (the ones that you don't delegate, that is), the more potential your small business has for greater success. You can boost your productivity by developing systems to streamline these processes.

4. Stop Multitasking

It's a productivity killer. Research shows that productivity can be reduced by as much as 40% by the mental blocks created when people switch tasks.

5. Make a To-Do List Each Night

Making (or updating) a to-do list each night means that you won’t waste time at the start of the workday looking for your task.

6. Delegate Well

When you delegate properly, you have more time to spend on your own work. The key is to assign the right task to the right person—a person you know has the skills to do the job and that you can trust to get it done—and then leave them to it. It takes some getting used to, but you'll be surprised how productive you can be when you really let go.

7. Get Enough Sleep

Seventy percent of Americans admitted to sleeping on the job in a survey done by William A. Anthony, PhD, a clinical psychologist and director of Boston University's Center for Psychological Rehabilitation. Why? Because they need to, Anthony says. Early-morning commutes, long work hours, and too many responsibilities at home mean that increasing numbers of people aren’t getting the shuteye they need.

We all know that sleep deprivation has negative effects on our performance. Lack of sleep decreases our concentration, working memory, mathematical capacity, and logical reasoning. And because the pre-frontal cortex is particularly vulnerable to a lack of sleep, tasks that require logical reasoning or complex thought will be the most impaired. Surprisingly, it only takes one night of sleep deprivation to create big deficits in our abilities.

So how much sleep do you need? Seven to nine hours a night if you’re an adult age 26 to 64, according to the National Sleep Foundation. If you’re not getting that much, then taking a nap during the day could be beneficial to your productivity