Time for another post!  I hope this post is useful to others..

As an assistant, one of your fortes is likely high productivity. Most people who have the ability to successfully work from home are naturally driven and work well without much supervision. However, often those high levels of productivity can lead to bad habits that can actually diminish your progress. Make some easy changes  that will help you work less and accomplish more!

Keep a time log
Knowing exactly how you are spending your time will help you spend it more productively. Keep track of your activities in 15-minute intervals. You may be surprised at where your days are going!

Stop multitasking
Some studies indicate that it takes you a full 20 minutes to return to optimum activity levels and focus after you have been interrupted. Multi-tasking keeps you in a constant state of this diluted focus. While you may feel like you are getting a lot done, the odds are that if you would focus on one task at a time, ultimately you would accomplish more.

Close the email
Email and instant messaging make you too accessible to your friends and colleagues, and also makes them too accessible to you. If you are working on a project that is less than enthralling, you are more likely to spend more time checking email or IMing than is really necessary. Even if you need to be highly accessible, try to keep your email checks to a 30-minute minimum, and in the interim, close the application.

By implementing these simple changes in your working style, you will soon see heightened productivity and still have time for other things in your life!