What You Can Do Today to Make Tomorrow More Productive

It's in your nature to think bigger and as an entrepreneur you're designed to want to make more. But to experience the success you want to achieve, you must use your time, energy and focus wisely.

With 96 blocks of 15 minutes in a day, be careful about letting yourself fall into the email, meeting or "do-you-have-just-a-minute-to-talk" traps. Guard your time carefully.Keep in mind that what you do over the next five to 10 hours will either positively or negatively impact your energy tomorrow. That means what you eat, how much water you drink, if you work out and how late you go to sleep tonight all determine the type of day you'll be having tomorrow. Be sure you're doing things that keep your energy on course.

Your biggest distraction is yourself. Most of the time, you set yourself up to fail. Ever tried to write a long email on your mobile phone while dismissing alerts from social media sites or instant messaging? You must create blocks of undistracted time if you're going to get the right things done.

When you make a conscious effort to focus, you need to decide how to best use your time in advance. At the end of a day, take a moment to think about the meetings, work sessions or appointments on your schedule for the next day and reassign them a level of priority.

Is there anything you can postpone? Is there anything to cancel? Is there something you need to prepare for in advance?

If you have multiple meetings scheduled, can you combine them into one? Decide what you want to focus on, and make sure you arrange everything so that you can be where you need to be, mentally and physically, without interruptions.

If you need to spend time alone working on a big assignment, schedule a 45 or 60 minute meeting with yourself, away from interruptions.

What does it mean to debrief success? I encourage my clients to assess once a week how they have improved the use of their time and focus during the past couple of days. To do this, open your calendar to next Thursday, a week from today. Doing this kind of debrief on Thursday, instead of Friday gives you a sense of achievement from reviewing that week’s work, which provides extra energy to carry on before the weekend. This also gives you time to organize anything that needs to be done before you leave the office for the weekend.

Being more strategic about how you use your time will take you further toward improving your productivity, so you can maximize the time and energy you have to get the most important things done.

Too Busy to Eat? Try These 5 On-The-Go Breakfasts

For busy entrepreneurs, sitting down for a hearty breakfast sounds like something out of a dream. Despite research that eating breakfast improves cognitive function, regulates mood  and may even decrease diabetes risk, a 2011 study showed as many as 31 million Americans skip breakfast. Dian Griesel, nutrition expert, entrepreneur and author of TurboCharged Recipes (Business School of Happiness Inc., 2012) is always on the lookout for fast, on-the-go foods that travel well and says planning your first meal of the day is the best way to avoid unhealthy eating habits later in the day. "Once you're out of your house, the first thing you'll do is grab an 800 calorie muffin because you're hungry," she says.

Here, she offers her top five breakfast foods on the go.

1. An apple or bunch of grapes. 
Fruits such as apples, grapes and berries are not only nutritious but pack a powerful hydrating punch. While hydration is important throughout the day, Griesel says it's crucial in the morning. "Overnight, your body has been working on eliminating. It's drawing water from all of your systems, so when you wake up in the morning, you're dehydrated," she says. Eating hydrating fruits will help promote a better digestion, reducing that sluggish feeling in the mid-afternoon when your overly dehydrated body begins to get backed up. Apples are not only hydrating, but are a great source of fiber, which also helps promote healthy digestion.

2. A hard-boiled egg. 
You don't need to sit down at the breakfast table to eat eggs. Throw scrambled eggs in a tortilla wrap as you head out the door. Hard boiled eggs also travel well and are a great way to get your kick of protein in the morning. "You could make a dozen hard boiled eggs and keep them in the refrigerator and they'll be ready to grab and go," says Griesel. A protein-rich breakfast may help stave off hunger and reduce unhealthy snacking on high-fat and high-sugar foods in the evening, according to a recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

3. Dates and nut butter.
Rather than grabbing a sugar-laden Danish at the coffee shop, one of Griesel's favorite breakfast foods are dates stuffed with nut butter. Slice the date in half, remove the pit and add a spoonful of nut butter. "It tastes rich like a caramel," she says. Dates are great mood-balancing foods. "It has all the mood-supporting vitamins [such as B vitamins] that support emotional balance," says Griesel, and are also an important source of calcium.

4. Yogurt. 
Snack-size portions of Greek yogurt make for a great breakfast on-the-go, but Griesel says you can get even more nutritional value from your yogurt breakfast with a little prep time the night before. Crush up your favorite nuts in a food processor or blender and place them in a small baggie. Add a little cinnamon for an antioxidant boost, then dump the nut and cinnamon mix into your package of unsweetened Greek yogurt for a nutrient-dense, high protein breakfast that will last you all morning. Nuts are particularly great at staving off hunger, helping you to cut back on those mid-morning cravings.

5. Smoothies. 
Swap your coffee cup for a nutritious smoothie. Using water or orange juice as a base, add a banana and any other fruits you have available. Frozen berries are great to keep handy for smoothies. Add some yogurt to make your smoothie creamy and for an extra dose of protein or a scoop of nut butter and throw in some fresh coconut which contains essential fatty acids that are important for brain health. "It's inexpensive, hydrates and gives super high nutrition per calorie," says Griesel.

We Asked, You Answered: 10 Workspaces That Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

Inspiration. It's something that compels you to do or create something.

Maybe it's the way the sun rises over the mountains within sight of your office window. It could be a simple note from a mentor or a friend. Perhaps it's a picture of loved one who encourages you to be better. Or maybe it's just some tchotchke in your office that reminds you of when you first started up.

Wherever it comes from, inspiration is the fuel that entrepreneurs operate on.

Not too long ago we asked you, our readers, to submit pictures of your inspiring workspaces. Using the hashtag #ENTatWork, you took to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and did just that.

We've sifted through all those great pictures and, quite unscientifically, selected 10 that stood out to us most -- in no particular order. Perhaps you'll find a little inspiration from the workspaces that help encourage some of our readers.

Keep Your Promises and Other Must-Read Business Tips

A roundup of the best tips of the week from Entrepreneur.com.
Entrepreneurs are known for making grand statements and inspiring other people with their visions of what is possible. But it's one thing to be a visionary and another to be someone who makes empty promises. "Poor leaders motivate those following them with false promises of promotions, success and a great tomorrow, but rarely deliver on those promises," says marketing and business-development expert Lewis Howes.
If you catch yourself doing this, and especially if it's a habit, you need to reassess your leadership tactics. A manipulative leader will dangle the goals and aspirations of his employees like a carrot to get them to do what he wants. But eventually employees will get fed up and most likely find somewhere else to work. Even if you don't intend to be manipulative, says Howes, "if you commit to something but don't follow through, it can send the wrong message to your employees, who you are pushing to deliver the best results." More: Signs You Might Be a Terrible Leader (Yes, You)
Make your message as simple and efficient as possible.
Getting a potential customer or client to take action isn't easy, but it's easier if you communicate as efficiently as possible. "Don't presume the audience has any interest in what your message is," says Tom Haley, a creative director at Chicago-based Jellyvision Lab, a company that provides personalized multimedia content for its clients. While you may eat, sleep and breathe your business, your customers don't. Give them what they need to make their decision -- nothing less, nothing more. More: 5 Simple Ways to Get Your Customers to Listen to You
Think about the space your employees are in.
One element of keeping employees is providing an environment in which they will enjoy working. Peace, Love & Little Donuts, located in Pittsburgh, sets itself apart from other doughnut shops partly with its unusual flavors, such as maple-and-bacon, and partly by providing such an environment for its staff. The psychedelic décor and 1970s music fit with the shop's "Feed Your Inner Hippie" slogan and provide a fun atmosphere that its workers, many of whom are young college students, won't mind spending a shift in. More: Why Happy Employees Are Your Key to Successful Branding
Debrief yourself every Thursday.
It's all too easy to let your time dribble away in emails, small talk and other distractions rather than being productive. To stay on track, sit down and give yourself a debrief every week, preferably on Thursday. That means assessing how you have spent your time and how you have improved (or slackened) your focus and productivity over the past week. "Doing this kind of debrief on Thursday, instead of Friday gives you a sense of achievement from reviewing that week’s work, which provides extra energy to carry on before the weekend," says Jason Womack, the founder of The Womack Company, an Ojai, Calif.-based productivity-training firm. "This also gives you time to organize anything that needs to be done before you leave the office for the weekend." More: What You Can Do Today to Make Tomorrow More Productive
Make disciplinary conversations objective, not subjective.
When one of your employees is behaving unprofessionally -- perhaps making inappropriate jokes or dressing in a way that isn't suitable for the workplace -- it's obvious that you need to sit the employee down for a serious talk. But it's important not to rely on vague words, like "professionalism," that can be interpreted subjectively. Refer instead to your company guidelines. That will make the substance of the conversation objective rather than subjective, says Susan Strayer LaMotte, founder of exaqueo, a workplace consulting firm. If you don't already have clear company guidelines for workplace attire and behavior, now is the time to create some, so that your employees will know what is expected.