Between email overload and too many tasks to accomplish in a day, how can a new or seasoned entrepreneur ensure that what's being done in the hours available is building profit, not expense? How can he or she ensure that important, revenue-generating tasks are not the ones left over at the end of each busy workday?

Here are 10 ways to streamline, automate, and stop wheel-spinning to ensure that the work being done in a business day can be optimized for profit.

1. Take your office with you. It should be easy to operate wherever you are! Emails, schedules, accounting, product specs, customer information, and vendor information—everything needs to be accessible over the Internet and instantly. Install terminal server software in your office, even if you have an office or use cloud-based software solutions, especially ones that are PDA enabled.
2. Get your calendar online. It's easy to keep your calendar up to date and PC synchronized. Using tools such as Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, or iCal, you can put an event such as a meeting or a conference call on your PC or smartphone calendar, choose names from your contact list, and click "invite." It automatically invites these contacts to reply and then updates everyone's calendars when they do. In larger firms with frequent group events, this tool can actually replace one position.
3. Avoid coverage glitches. If your life needs the Internet, don't let lost phones, forgotten chargers, and lack of a signal slow you down. Get an aircard for your laptop; a charger in the car; an extra phone—whatever it takes to prevent glitches so your work time goes uninterrupted.
4. Automate business-payment methods. Don't pay bills by hand and waste time at the post office. Get into your bank's or your vendors' online systems, and find out how to autopay or pay online. While you're at it, get your own incoming cash automated so you can easily be paid by your clients with credit cards or electronic transfers.
5. Control your email life. Save a day a month by using email efficiently. For example, don't "reply to all" unless you want to again and again be replying all day. Take action as soon as you open each email so it's gone for good. Create a meaningful folder system so you can find messages easily, and keep your inbox mostly empty.
6. Create repeatable systems. Automate any busywork or activity you do regularly, whether it's service appointments, consulting engagements, or employee reviews. The scheduling of these should go on the calendar as a recurring event. Create customizable forms, checklists, and reports for each type of event so you're not reinventing the wheel each time.
7. Get alerts going. Avoid costly mistakes and misses by setting reminders and "trigger actions" with software you use or processes that you create. Use alerts for any event that requires an action, such as a bank account overdraft, your company mentioned in a media article, a salesperson selling a job under cost, or a computer-security breach.
8. Manage by exception. Stop wasting time on aspects of your small business that don't need attention. If you are a solo-preneur, don’t set up systems that 10 person firms require. Review only exceptions to the rule, such as costs above projection, budget versus actual deviations, and sales projections not met. Getting into this mind-set will streamline all of your management functions.
9. If it works for one, do it for many. Whatever works well for one client, make it a pattern, a routine, a documented process. Start setting up, repeating, and refining processes that can work for many clients. This will free up a few hours each day.
10. Computerize. Don’t manage your new venture or your existing venture with anything other than automated systems. Have software that integrates, passes emails to you, updates your calendars, and “talks” to your clients. New cloud-based CRM systems let you work from anywhere, keeping in touch with prospective clients and existing ones. New, sleek, integrated solutions made by companies such as Microsoft and SAP group all your business functions under one umbrella and can save you time, increase productivity, and save money on services such as computer consultants or CPAs.

Of course, there's never a one-size-fits-all approach that works every time for every business and every need. But by tailoring these strategies into your startup's best practices, you can be at least one step ahead of the competition.