Like most people, you likely spend about half your day at work checking emails and messages. Unfortunately, such distractions take their toll on your productivity.

In order to avoid distractions, organizing your tasks using a time matrix, productivity software with four divisions, each accounting for a different part of your time. Let's call each division a Quadrant.

Quadrant 1 would include important and urgent work. For example, this is the time you spend working on emergencies and last-minute things.

Quadrant 2 would consist of important but not urgent tasks. For example, preparing that document for an important meeting next week.

Quadrant 3 would be work that is not important but urgent like checking your email.

Quadrant 4 would be the time spent on unimportant things like playing games on your mobile or checking social media.

You should strive to spend most of your time in Quadrant 2. Even though you may feel productive when you are in Quadrant 1 or 3 it means you're only reacting to whatever comes your way and not really focusing on doing top-notch work. We often mistake the urgent to be important which is not always the case.

We do our best work in Quadrant 2 simply because it is where we can focus and think. In order to stay here, use the "Pause-Clarify-Decide" method to determine logically whether the task is truly important.

Example, when an email arrives in your inbox, pause for a bit and think: Who is this message from? What's the topic? Will this need urgent action? If the answer to the last one is no then go concentrate on something else instead.