If you own a business that enables clients to establish your deadlines you may find you are actually less productive than you should be. Are you wondering how that’s possible?

Let’s take a look through the lens of a hypothetical business owner named Jerry, a custom furniture designer. In our fictitious tale Jerry has been hired to construct a one-of-kind rocking chair that is reminiscent of a 19th century wooden slat chair. The customer has requested that the chair be ready for pickup in two weeks. Jerry knows it should take 10 days to complete the project and is happy that the project will give him an extra four days.

If we were to follow Jerry over those 14 days we would find idle hours each day with the probability that he would be cramming at the end to get the project completed on time.

When critically evaluating Jerry’s progress we see that he effectively lost at least two days of work simply because he did not manage his time well.

What if, instead of allowing the customer to set the deadline, Jerry was to have indicated his ability to have the piece done in ten days? The customer likely would have been thrilled the piece would be finished sooner and Jerry would have been able to move on to new projects.

There is another factor that can be thrown into the mix. Jerry could spend a specified time each day working to develop new leads, manage administrative duties and provide follow-up contacts with existing customers.

It is possible to expend so much energy in simply ‘doing’ business that you forget to find the time to develop new business until you realize you really need new business.

It is possible that for individuals like Jerry there comes a point when they have to refuse business simply because they need to get caught up on the administrative side of their business. It is also possible that Jerry, and those like him, may work like crazy trying to fulfill orders and then have nothing to do for a while because they did not take the time to develop new customers or to promote their business.

I think guys are often the victims of what I like to call the malady of ‘uni-focused vision’. It seems that many of us are more comfortable focusing on one issue or skill set and only shifting that focus when it seems absolutely necessary. The end result is often a business that is in various stages of feast or famine.

If you already own a business one of the best money making ideas I know of is to work at developing the ability to shift focus from time to time. The result of your due diligence is that your business will be more balanced. Because you will be more timely in administrative work and follow-up your customers and accountant will believe your business is more viable. Best of all you will likely find yourself more productive overall with less bouts of intense stress as you race to finish up an outstanding project.

This advice works for virtually all moneymaking ideas. Concentrate on all aspects of your business at some point during the day. Time management will save you money and it has a great potential to help you create wealth as well.