Does Busyness Have Anything to Do With Business?

I'm struggling just a little bit these days to determine whether my busyness is leading to business or whether it's becoming a distraction for me.

Before I go any further here, I need to tell all of you that I have spent exactly $50 on advertising for my business: $25 for an ad in the program for my Sweet Adeline chorus show last year and $25 for an ad in the program for this year's show. That's it. So I'm grateful that, other than that $50, I've spent no money to promote my business and am still in business. I've been very fortunate that word-of-mouth marketing has been incredibly successful for me.

However, we all know time is money, so in that case I'm spending a lot.

I understand that time, like money, needs to flow. As we try to hoard either, we end up, in the end, with unfulfilled expectations and frustrations because, although we may find ourselves with a few extra dollars and a few extra minutes, we won't really be productive with either.

But my challenge these days is getting beyond what I know in my head to doing something with it in my life.

Does anyone have any ideas for turning busyness into business? What do you - especially you who are fellow "soul" proprietors - do to focus your time and energy to generate new client opportunities? Any suggestions about how you've taken advantage of word-of-mouth marketing?