Our Tuesday series today features methods and suggestions to increase, enhance and mobilize personal productivity. In both our personal and professional lives, we always seem limited by not having enough time to accomplish all that we strive to achieve.

Here in our modern internet age, we find that we are more distracted on a daily basis than ever before. It's a big challenge to be focused and disciplined enough to concentrate on a single project without interruptions for an hour or two continuously.

Important projects demand our full and deep concentration. It takes willpower, practice and a commitment to sticking to the task at hand no matter how many telephone calls, texts or emails may arrive on your personal devices during this time.

In fact, experts warn that the biggest time waster and interrupter is nothing other than the cellphone that often appears to be an appendage of our physical bodies.

Here are key pitfalls to avoid when working on an important personal or professional project, especially when a deadline is looming:

—Plan your master schedule carefully and carve out blocks of time (in terms of hours, not minutes) so that you can have enough time to make meaningful, valuable progress on the project at hand.

—Set your work environment up intentionally such that you won't be tempted to multitask. Nothing stops an important task in its tracks faster than a seemingly harmless, brief multitasking opportunity that somehow morphs into way too much time to handle. Not only are you at risk of losing valuable time, but the break in your concentration on your primary task takes time to recover, and often upon restarting does not benefit from the previously established momentum you had created.

—Plan in advance to turn your phone off and only allow critical and emergency notifications. This can be set up in advance via your contact list and your phone's settings.

—Set your phone to full airplane mode whenever you have scheduled important work time.

—Do not scroll through email during an important task, even on a planned break. Again, the multitasking monster looms large and can cause problems and delays. If you plan a break after perhaps an hour, go get a drink of cool water and take a quick, brisk walk outside without your phone. Use the time walking to continue thinking about your project. Great ideas often pop into our minds during active breaks such as a quick 5-minute walk.

—Plan ahead to meditate or do deep breathing exercises both before starting your big task and upon returning from planned breaks. This both clears the mind and rejuvenates one's creativity and focus.

—Set a regular, specific location to accomplish your important tasks that will take blocks of your time. If in your home environment, be sure to put any and all distractions out of your sight before you begin. If others are in your domicile, notify them you'll be working on a project for several hours and are not to be interrupted for any reason short of an emergency.

—Another successful strategy many agree helps is to make a good friend aware of your schedule, and to encourage any "seemingly important" communications that would normally be sent to you instead be sent to your designated friend. You'll benefit in two ways: First, in the knowledge that anyone who would try to reach you will have someone to communicate with. You can forward your phone calls to your friend for a few hours, for example. Second, the fact that your friend knows your schedule and will ask you afterwards how you did can actually turn out to be a great motivator, according to several surveys on this topic.

—As we go through our busy lives as spring turns into summer, most people face even more dramatic time pressures than they do at other times of year. The key, as with most endeavors, is to plan ahead and to be proactive in your execution of your personal game plan.

—Take the time to think through things well in advance of actually working on this idea of having important blocks of time to accomplish what is truly important to you and your life. The more practice (and success!) you garner over time, the more a profound, comfortable routine can be established.

It's quite a euphoric feeling to actually schedule important, uninterrupted time for yourself and to then be able to pull it off successfully. Keep working at refining your plan as you go along, and in short order you'll benefit from your new time management skills.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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