Being a small business owner is tough. It's difficult to get steady clients, which means it's difficult to get steady money. Not impossible, mind you, just difficult. If you have the right combination of passion, dedication and motivation you can make any business successful.

One of the things that I face as a small business owner, though, is other small business owners. There are certain myths out there that I think need to be squashed. And one of them is this notion that to run a small business you have to spend 24/7 working.

I have a friend and associate who also owns his own business. In fact, like me he's in production. And he does very well. He makes decent money and seems to have plenty of work. But in talking to him I find that he's a little unhappy with the kind of work he gets. It isn't exactly what he wanted to do. He's making a buck, but not making his dreams come true.

This friend has the attitude that if you cut off your work day at 5p.m. you're "wasting time." In his opinion you have to be willing to work late into the evening, every evening, to keep your business going.

I have an issue with that.

First of all, I have a wife now, which means that small as it may be I have a family. My first priority is to my tiny little family. Nothing else is as important. The argument could be made that supporting that family is part of making it a priority, and I agree. But above and beyond that, my wife is more important than my work.

That said, my next issue with the "wasting time" argument is that in order for the long work hours to pay off you have to actually have work to do. I'm a pretty well organized person. I know how to get a job done quickly and efficiently. If I can, I'm going to finish up as quickly as possible because the most precious commodity I have is time. So the ideal job is to make more money and invest less time, right? Isn't that what everyone wants? In most cases, I finish up the work I have to do well before 5p.m., so cutting off my work day around that time is perfectly acceptable to me.

What I've noticed about most entrepreneurs is that they have the willingness to work long hours. That's the key, not the long hours themselves. It's the drive to complete the work, to do the job, to be reliable. If you can do what you say you'll do, in the time you say you'll do it, for the money you agree to compensated for, then you're a success. You've done it. The rest is planning.

My small business doesn't make a ton of money right now. But it does make something. It's growing. I see it every day. Considering I'm only a year in, it's doing rather well. And if I have to take another job to make sure that the business has enough operating capital to make it, then so be it. In that, I'm certainly willing to "do whatever it takes."

But you can see the difference there, right? The first idea is that you put in the long hours to make it successful. You pay the price of working until late into every evening, and that's what makes the business work.

The second idea is that you do whatever it takes. If the job requires you to be there late into the evening, then you are. If it doesn't, then you aren't. If it requires that you take a second job, then you do. If it doesn't, then you don't. If you have to work out of your home instead of an office building, then that's what you do. But if you don't have work that keeps you in the office until 10p.m. every evening, then why are you there? Isn't that wasting time?

It's not about hours logged, it's about the quality of those hours. The productive power of them. You focus on what's important first, and the rest takes care of itself. For me, the focus has to be on finding clients. That's the driving force in my day right now. Finding clients is pretty much a round-the-clock kind of job, but it's not always a go-out-and-dig kind of thing. Mostly, it's every casual contact, every moment you talk with someone, every hand you shake, every store you walk into. Business cards and web forums. Telephone calls and e-mails. Networking. So in a sense, I AM working late into every evening, because the networking never really stops.

But sitting at a desk? For no other reason than you feel obligated to? Now who's wasting time.

J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Editor of ViewOnline Magazine at www.viewonline.com. He is also a Writer and Producer for Hat Digital Media at www.hatdigitalmedia.com. If you'd like to e-mail him you may do so at kevin@viewonline.com. He feels obligated to sit and watch the clock hands move.