Do you ever feel like you spend your entire work day putting out fires and responding to other people’s needs? Do you find yourself drowning in meetings and a never-ending stream of email to the point where you aren’t able to get your most important projects done or to the point of putting off proactively contacting key clients or customer?

In todayʼs work environment, it can be harder than ever to actually get work done — particularly the work that is important, but not necessarily. Workloads have increased, employee and customer needs and requests continue to demand attention, and the “always on” world can makes it hard to focus on getting to and getting through the projects on your own to do list.

Here are 5 Easy Steps to Make the Most of Your Work Day:

1. Create Blocks of Time to Get your Own Work Done

• Create 90-minute blocks of time during which you can focus on a single project
• The first of these blocks should be the first 90 minutes of every day — this will likely be your most productive time during the day, so make this non-negotiable time for doing your own work.

2. Eliminate All Distractions

• Silence your cell phone
• Forward your office phone to voicemail
• Close your office door
• DO NOT OPEN your email

3. Get Clear About What you Are Doing and Why

• Clarify and review what is most important for you to do during this time.
• Imagine how you will feel as you go through your day if you have been able to complete or make significant progress on at least one of your most important items during your 90-minute block at the beginning of the day.
• Remind yourself about what you are setting out to accomplish and why it is important in moving your business forward. If you arenʼt clear about why you are doing it, table until you validate the need to do it in the first place and work on another project instead.

4. Do the Work:

• You have 90 minutes. Take advantage of it.
• Stay focused. At all costs.

5. Take a Moment to Breathe:

• Stop working once 90 minutes have passed, but before you move onto the next thing, take a moment to just stop and take a few deep breaths.
• Life is a precious gift. Today only happens once. Choose to focus on what matters most. Notice how it feels to have made significant progress on important work in throes of a world where all the urgent things can very easily get in the way!