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SCORE offers free business mentoring services to thousands of businesses in Southern ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ every year. Here are some of the most common time killers we see.

Emailing is the top form of communication in the workplace. While a written record of everything can be nice, it is not necessary for every conversation. Email communication can take longer than a phone call, voicemail or voice text. In addition, our days are constantly interrupted by incoming emails. These interruptions cause distractions, multitasking and mistakes, all of which are ineffective uses of your time. Try minimizing your email communications when you can.

Employees spend significant amounts of work time on personal business. They may be surfing on Facebook, or having personal conversations through email, text and phone. Implement a policy and encourage employees to conduct personal business during their lunch break. Website blockers and tracking software will allow you to determine how your employees are spending their work time.

Colleague interactions are another black hole of productivity. If you constantly get interrupted by coworkers, try wearing headphones or close the door to your office if you have one.

Being disorganized is one of the most common causes for work slowdown. Declutter your workstation, invest in an organizer and filing system and put everything in its proper place before you go home each day.

There are several other significant time wasters, including lack of employee training, failure to delegate, inefficient meetings, excessive smoke breaks and noisy coworkers.

Spend some time identifying which of these are the biggest drains on your productivity. Create a plan to minimize these profit killers, and implement the plan in 2017.