Good advice Jari, it still boils down, as you write so well in your essay, to individuals. Emails and meetings as monsters to eat into your focussed workday is easy to see as these come to me from other people one on one: but I often fail to grasp that my social media moments (every minute spent on Twitter where I procratinate) drags me down equally. So each of your 12 pointers are excellent thought points. Come back to that and remind myself often that these should not stand in the way. Easy to blame the external variables, but harder to identify and fix the internal weaknesses that give in to the temptations. Less talk and more self-discipline is needed to have the ability to say “no”, not only to others but also equally to myself.
Every day is a marshmallow exercise for adults (sigh!)