2. You do unrelated tasks that will “only take a second.”

“We have this mindless habit of doing whatever it is that pops up in our head, because we don’t want to forget it,” Kornick said. “We tell ourselves it will just take a second, but then one thing leads to the next.”

Kornick recommends creating a “shiny thing list” of off-work tasks to keep your chunks of work time uninterrupted and to figure out what you can delegate, defer or handle later.