It can be really tough to deal with this challenge, especially since it sounds like you’re a key person in the office. What I would say, though, without knowing more about your situation, is that you’ve got to find some way to protect your flow time. Remember that during flow you’re focusing on the highest level tasks, doing the things that really move your business forward the most.

If you’re not getting a chance to do those things because you’re getting eaten away by distractions, then you’re not moving towards your vision. And that’s probably the most frustrating thing for you!

Even if you have to schedule some time with yourself, away from the office, to focus on your top creative tasks, it’s worth it. There’s lots of ways to do it–some people we’ve coached schedule the first two hours of their day with themselves to do strategic, big picture stuff.

Or you could take one or two afternoons off a week to do it.

Probably the biggest thing to overcome is the feeling that you might need to be there to handle a crisis that comes up. In that case, you’ll want to give clear instructions to your team/the people in your office about under what circumstances they can interrupt your flow time. Make it explicit and clear to them (death of a family member, huge computer crash, big client calling to say they’re leaving you, whatever…)

Otherwise they’ll still think everything is a crisis that has to be handled right away.

Just do whatever it takes to protect your precious flow time!

Hope this helps!

Josh