In case you're not able to declare certain days off limits, I suggest a strategy that has worked for me in the past: schedule your work time. If you need two da

In case you're not able to declare certain days off limits, I suggest a strategy that has worked for me in the past: schedule your work time. If you need two days to work on something, fill those two days on your calendar. It can be broken up into smaller segments (I sometimes do it in 3 hour chunks), or just the whole day. This causes an important psychological change when someone tries to book a meeting, they can see your time on the calendar and will need to ask you to make space for their meeting. This is a lot different than seeing a wide open, empty day. It forces consideration of the tradeoffs. If you work in a thoughtful company, this is usually enough to get you some space to work in a more focused way.