Great post here. I – much like you and many other SEOs – am burried with work. I spend far too much time with my email too, and can totally relate to finding it hard to find time for client work.

I’m a bit of a perfectionist with some things, so if I just make a to-do list and try to do everything on the list I’ll never get to most things. I did this for years and something always suffered. Thus, time for a change.

Here’s my new kick… not sure if it is actually working for me yet though

1) I create blocks of time in my day and really in my week. Each client has a block of time each week. Its not limited to that, but rather this is my way of ensuring that we’ll always do “something” for each client and no one will get left behind. Before we did this someone was always getting pushed to the back burner. We also reserve blocks for our own projects so we know they at least get 5 hours a week of my time. I’d like to give them more, they need more, but at least I know they’ll get 5 hours every week for sure. Previously they were usually get no time b/c they just never made it high enough on the to-do list.

2) I start my workday very early so that there are a couple of hours in the morning when I can get work done and the stream of emails hasn’t yet started. There are no phone calls. My clients and everyone else are still sleeping. This is my most productive time of the day.

One thing I do to stay more focused is to outsource some of the more mundane tasks. That way I don’t get burnt out doing work that I don’t like. Knowing that other people are working on my sites too gives me extra motivation to keep up with their efforts.

-Joe