You’ve probably read articles that document how much time entrepreneurs spend on the job, especially during the startup phase. More than 50 percent of small-business owners work more than 60 hours a week; a quarter of those hardworking people put in more than 70 hours weekly.

But the studies don’t tell us whether those entrepreneurs are managing their time well. Here are some strategies to help you operate at peak effectiveness:

• Think about what time of day you do your best work. Reserve one- to two-hour prime-time blocks on your calendar, and devote them to your most difficult and important work. Don’t take phone calls, allow interruptions or check e-mail during those hours.

• Perform tasks such as e-mailing and returning phone calls in batches. Save these tasks for low-energy times of the day when you’re not sharp enough for challenging projects.

• Decide what’s most important and do it. Make sure you devote most of your time to top-level priorities with high potential payoff. Contract out or delegate the time-consuming, trivial tasks that erode your effectiveness.

• Control your clutter. Traditional organizing books can help linear, left-brain types who like to categorize and file. But creative people may prefer a different approach—for example, using see-through storage bins for stacking papers rather than attempting to clear everything off the desk and hide it in file cabinets.

• If you don’t know where to begin getting your office in order, hire a professional organizer—preferably one who has worked with others in your field and will propose solutions custom-made for you.