Taking on more and more clients in a service business would seem like a great thing to do. After all, more clients equals more revenue, right? The answer is: Maybe.

Solo service providers often enjoy a closer working relationship with clients that larger companies don’t. The longer my clients stayed with me, the better. Of course, long term clients mean more income.

A sticky problem came up though; I had too many clients to reasonably service and time management became a serious issue.

I work alone and I like working alone. No apologies. But here’s the thing; You cannot do everything. There just isn’t enough of you to go around. Sooner or later, you’ll have to be in two or three places at once.

When it came to my clients any interruption was dealt with quickly. Calls were answered quickly. Calls were returned quickly. All well and good until I looked at the numbers I was producing…

Dismal and Abysmal. Clearly, whatever I was doing played havoc with my productivity. What’s a guy to do?

I became a procrastinator. By choice. I admit it.

My motto became “Why Do Today What You Can Put Off Until Tomorrow“.

Three things to do:

• set up a voicemail greeting saying you’re “unavailable” right at this moment
• become “unavailable”
• having the discipline to remain “unavailable”

Sounds bad when you put it like that.

The strategy worked great though. Turns out my clients didn’t expect me to drop everything I was doing. No one complained. I got more work done.

If you work alone, as I do, the best thing for your productivity is to put a buffer between you and your client. You need that time to process and respond rather than react. Most people won’t even notice the difference.

But you will.

Can you find the discipline to do it?