Too much distractions, too many pieces of work, spreading oneself thin. The most successful people succeed because they were dedicating their energies on one thing, that they want to win at. Athletes don’t go for ‘quick wins’; self-respecting scientists don’t try to ‘quick-publish’. Instead, they find their system to practice, to be able to strengthen and gain mastery, to discover and process those discoveries.
Each day, maybe it’s great to start the day deciding what is the objective you want to take on, to deal with. And stick to it; and to keep saying no to other things. A runner don’t go and play football for one season and go back to running every now and then. Even if he loves playing football, he has to keep saying no. A scientist don’t order sodium hydroxide for one experiment and then suddenly decide to use it to clean his lab instead.
You are a professional too. So set up your practice and run your system – to deliver on your objectives. One objective at a time, and deliver each of them.