Time is valuable. Actually time is one of the most valuable things anyone can have. This is especially true of business people like you. Once time is gone you can never have it back because you're always working with a fixed amount of it. Therefore it's important to get the most of out of each working day both personally and of course professionally.

Self-employed people tend to have the same general problem though. You can be the most efficient time manager in the world but you will always suffer from at least one time "vampire". Time vampires are those distractions or events that take away from your working day in a very big way. They're frustrating, draining and costly.

The worst time vampires are friends and family unfortunately. When you work for yourself friends and family tend to assume that even though you're earning a living doing this it's not really a "serious" job. Based on that they decide it's ok to stroll in on you at any time of the day without any warning. Now as much as you may love and value your friends and family this is annoying. Personally I've had friends "drop by" for 4 hours. That's almost half a working day! These are your time vampires - they simply suck the time out of your day.

So what do you do?

Establish rules!

This may seem harsh but you couldn't just walk into their workplace for a few hours to chat so they'll need to offer the same courtesy to you. If they don't understand this then you'll need to make things more formal.

Here are some suggestions for controlling time vampires.

1. Have a family meeting and explain that from the hours of 9 - 5 (or whatever your working hours are) that you won't be available for non-business issues unless it's an emergency.

2. Print out your working hours and make them highly visible around your home or office. You could even include your working hours on the signature line of all your emails so that you're letting friends know without making a big deal out of it.

3. For persistent offenders who don't get the message then it's time to be blunt with them. Saything something like "It's great seeing you but I have to get back to work now. In future before you drop in please call me first to make sure I'm free? I'm sure you understand." will let them know that you have work to do. This is being assertive yet polite and gets the message across.

4. Diehard time vampires. If you wind up with a die hard case who won't listen to reason then simply don't answer the phone or the front door if they decide to come calling. That may seem a bit cold and harsh but will have the desired effect. Some people are just lonely but unless you're running a counselling service then this isn't your job.

If you can't manage your time and your time vampires then your business is going to suffer. That's the very last thing you want right?