It’s not easy. Learning to say no is the biggest thing. Training your co-workers and your boss that you are working on a certain project from 9 am to 11 am (or whatever time block you are asking for) and are unavailable. Send requests via e-mail or voice mail. Unless it is a fire or if it is the boss calling, don’t bother me.

Sometimes I’ll have a co-worker try to dump something on me so that they don’t have to do it. I’ll usually walk through it the first time WITH them so that they can do it. Oftentimes they’ll resist because they don’t have time for it. But I try to be persistent on insist on helping them the first time. That way, they’ll learn not to try to dump things on me. Sometimes they’ll try to go over my head and have my boss give it to me. Then I explain to my boss that I’ve already trained Mr. X/Ms. X and they’re just trying to pass the buck to me.

Then explaining to the boss that you will need to put up time blocks where you are unavailable so that they may/may not understand why you are asking for a change in how you operate.

Oftentimes, I’ll remove myself and go to an empty conference room and work with my laptop in there and will come out from hiding only in the event of an emergency. Sometimes it gets bad and I’ll head over to a nearby coffee shop and work from there. If they need me, I can screen them with my voice mail or e-mail.

At the end of my e-mails, I’ll have a footer stating that I check my e-mails only during preset times (10 am and 4 pm) and will respond at the next available time slot.

I also put my iPhone and iPad in airplane mode so that notifications from my news apps and e-mail and such won’t distract me until I’ve actually turned off airplane mode to peek at notifications.

I also build in buffer times. If something takes a half hour, I usually make it 45 minutes. If something takes 60 minutes, I’ll typically have 90 minutes reserved instead. If I can finish ahead of time, I’ll go ahead and catch up on other things. A pomodoro timer or app is often helpful to keep me on track.

Before I even get that big task, I’ll make sure I have all the tools necessary before beginning - power charger for my laptop, any extra tools and reference books that I might need, and a good cup of coffee.