Amid the many distractions present during your workday, such as checking email every few minutes or getting sucked into a protracted email exchange, there are some simple steps you can take to stay on task and up your productivity.

Inc. joins forces with what the magazine calls a “project management blackbelt” to offer seven tips to staying focused and productive, which include the directive to stop multi-tasking – citing research that “changing tasks more than 10 times a day makes you dumber than being stoned.”