Make a list of your priorities, do them in order, what doesn’t get done doesn’t get done don’t worry about it. That’s why you have a priority list. As long as you communicate to stakeholders and get agreement on the priority order, then nobody has room to argue.

Schedule a block of time per day where you can’t be interrupted so you can get your hyperfocus in. Don’t eat into your personal time for this focus time.

What’s important is not always urgent, and what’s urgent is not always important.

Answering the phone is urgent, it’s ringing right now, but when you answer it it’s a telemarketer - it’s not important. A lot of life is like this.

I utilize the ticketing system. If you call me with an issue, I’ll politely ask you to put in a ticket so I remember when I have time. Even my tier III techs have to put in a ticket. Sorry, just the way it is. I’ll get to it when I have time.

Obviously this excludes emergencies so you’ll never fully get rid of the interruption issue. It is a part of this job, but you can try to lessen the impact.

Without context, to me it seems like you need a new colleague hired who can take some of the random work off your shoulders. This way you can be present in the oh so important meetings and focus on developing the infra.

Let me pinshit about “adhoc”, a latin word which most people think of as meaning something like “spontaneous”. That’s wrong! Ad (to) hoc (this) means “in this regard”. If someone asks you a specific question, you could answer “adhoc i have no idea” or “i don’t know anything adhoc”. There’s no such thing as “adhoc work”.