1. Calculate your personal earnings goal. First determine how much money you want to pull out of your business, calculate your living expenses per hour, and then calculate your productive hours to determine your personal earnings goal. Knowing this number will reinforce the importance and value of your time, writes expert Mike Periu. " If your PEG is $200, then a wasted one-hour meeting that includes two hours of commute round-trip just set you back $600." (From "How Much Do You Really Need to Make? The Answer May Shock You," by Mike Periu)

2.  Make sure you haven’t missed deductions you qualify for. There are a few commonly overlooked tax deductions that small business owners skip over:  home offices; meal, travel and auto expenses; software and subscriptions; and insurance premiums. Work with a tax professional to keep this from happening to you. (From "The Ultimate Small-Business Tax Season Survival Kit," by Kelly Spors)

3. Drink more water. Want to kick your coffee habit? Take a tip from serial entrepreneur Moe Glenner: drink water for "at least most of the day." "By being well-hydrated, I seem to have plenty of energy to be both productive and creative," Glenner said. (From "Caffeine Nation: 3 Ways to Kick the Habit," by Geoff Williams)

4. Break your goals into smaller, weekly goals. Setting large goals for yourself and your team can be admirable, but can seem insurmountable. Dissect your big goals into smaller, more manageable chunks to keep them from getting lost in the shuffle of managing a company. (From "5 Habits That Can Boost Your Business in 60 Days or Less," by Anita Campbell)

5. Focus on engagement. It's not the number of page views, email subscribers and site registrations you have that matters; it's all about how engaged those users actually are. Instead track who is visiting your site, if your email list is healthy and how many comments, shares and likes active members are making on your site.(From "The Most Worthless Site Metrics You're Probably Still Using," by Glen Stansberry)

6. Know the dark side of customer engagement. Flappy Bird is an insanely popular and difficult gaming app that brought developer Dong Nguyen $50,000 a day. So why did he recently pull the game off of Apple's App Store? His commitment to answering every irate user's messages on Twitter became too overwhelming. "Though customer engagement through social media is generally considered an effective business tactic, Nguyen's extreme responsiveness with some of his 162,000 followers seemed to pose challenges as great to him as his game posed to players." (From "'Flappy Bird,' Game Over: The Dark Side of Customer Engagement," by Kelly Spors)

7. Show your clients how valuable you are. In an attempt to court new business to help your business grow, you could be neglecting the needs of your existing customers. One sign your client is thinking about working with another company is to ask for a 2013 results recap, says expert Rohit Bhargava. But you can make the request work in your favor by also giving them a forecast of what you plan on doing to meet and exceed their expectations in 2014. (From "3 Signs Your Client Is Thinking About Firing You," by Rohit Bhargava)

8. Build a team to help you fill in gaps in your knowledge base. This is especially vital advice for first-time entrepreneurs, says Wendy Torrance, director of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation. “One of the really important things for any first-time founder to do is to assess their knowledge and skills," she says. "[They should] understand where the gaps are, and either seek education to fill those gaps or identify people with the experiences that they lack [to] create a founding team that’s really strong in as many dimensions as it can be.” (From "Rookies: The Unexpected Vision of First-Time Entrepreneurs," by Anthonia Akitunde)

9. Look for new talent where they hang out. Need to add some technical wizards to your team? Instead of posting the position on another job board, scope out the scene at hackathon or demo day. (From "10 Hiring Tips for Your Small Business," by Lauren Drell)

10. Start using pen and paper again. In a world where to-do lists and word processing can all be done online, sometimes it's nice to get back to basics. "Going old school can be the ideal solution when you’re stuck in a rut, especially if you’re overworked," advises small-business expert Mike Michalowicz. "Just like a change of scenery can help you focus better, using different tools to help you brainstorm or finish up a project will get your mind working differently." (From "6 Ways to Skyrocket Your Productivity in Minutes," by Mike Michalowicz)

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