We’ve all been there—staring down the week’s to-do list with the best of intentions, only to find, at the end of the week, that we didn’t accomplish everything that was required of us. Our tasks get carried over into the following week, and before we know it, we’re caught in the paradox of being simultaneously too busy and minimally productive.

If this sounds familiar, rest assured: There are indeed solutions to your productivity problems. Robert Pozen provides concrete strategies in his new MIT Sloan Executive Education program, Maximizing Your Personal Productivity, and we share some of them below.

“First, let’s understand that professionals are held back from being productive by both external and internal forces,” says Pozen. “External forces are things like emails and meetings—burdensome tasks that can derail even the most promising schedule. And internal constraints, like procrastination and perfectionism, can make us our own worst enemy.”

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