Time management is an essential skill for entrepreneurs who find themselves being pulled in many directions at once. Besides using a task management timer as we recently suggested here at SeanSEO.com, there are other things you can do as well in order to increase your productivity. Problogger talks about how batch processing helps him and that’s something you can do with your various tasks to stay on target and reach your goals.

Here are a few time management tips:

• Emailing is something most people do throughout the day but instead of checking email every minute or two and giving it a chance to take you away from the task you’re working on, turn off your auto-notification sound or alert and check it hourly instead. When you’re in the middle of a task, don’t be tempted to check it in the middle.

• Sometimes it’s better to be invisible for a bit! Instant messaging and Skype are great but can be very disruptive. Turn them off or stay invisible other than in short periods of time per day so you aren’t constantly interrupted by those who want to chat you up.

Here’s a big one:

Use Social Networking as a Reward

If you use microblogging tools like Plurk and Twitter, only stop in periodically during the day. Save socializing (even if it’s productive socializing) for after you’ve completed a task to reward yourself. For instance, if you’ve submitted to article directories, go on Twitter and Plurk to buzz your articles after you’ve done them and take that time to spend a few minutes surfing the blogosphere or chatting with your friends.

Having a productive lifestyle does take discipline and you occasionally need to hide from online friends and force yourself to work before you can play.