One of the most powerful words in all of leadership development as an executive coach is proactive. The need to determine your priorities everyday and then have the discipline to resist being distracted by all of the new inputs is what separates activity from accomplishment. This HBR post is worth the read:
“You set aside the first hour of your day to work on a strategy document that you’ve been putting off for a week. You haven’t been disciplined about getting to it, but you’ve had one crisis after another to deal with in the past week. Now, finally, you’ve carved out 90 early morning minutes to work on it.”