Habits that will kill your productivity
Certain habits prevent us from being as productive as we know we are capable of. The problem is that these habits aren’t always obvious and sometimes they seem harmless or even profitable. If you are struggling with productivity it’s time to assess yourself, identify productivity hindering habits and eliminate them. Read on to discover some habits that can kill your productivity.
10 Productivity Habits Killer
Failure to plan
If you simply stumble through your day from task to task without proper planning, you will end up doing the right things at the wrong time. And that’s the opposite of productivity. Planning your day will only take a few minutes of dedicated time. You can write down plans the night before or at the start of the day. Your day doesn’t have to be stressful and demotivating so plan in relaxation periods along with your tasks.
Procrastination
Are you the kind of person who insists that they are more productive under pressure and so wait until it’s almost the deadline before starting a task? Or you just think that you are lazy and that’s why you never do your work on time. You are most probably suffering from chronic procrastination. No matter the excuse, procrastination is a habit that has serious consequences.
Allowing negative thoughts to thrive
If you allow thoughts of self-doubt, fear, and helplessness to stay too long in your mind, you will end up unproductive. Because negative thoughts as such make you lose enthusiasm for life or your job. It could make you lose confidence in yourself and stop you from bringing your best to your tasks. Thinking negative thoughts is a thought habit to fight because the thoughts can pop into our minds. However, they only remain if we permit them.
Creating an unending to-do list
Creating a to-do list before the start of the day is good and important but the problem arises when it is excessive. You feel overwhelmed before your day begins when your to-do list is too long. The thought of your endless list might lead to you giving up on them in the long run. Not all items on your list need to be done in a day, they can be broken down into days, weeks, or months.
Not saying “no”
In an attempt not to offend people or pass up so-called “once in a lifetime opportunities”, you may find yourself saying yes to every demand. At the end of the day, you are overwhelmed with obligations to other people that you cannot meet if you must fulfill your core commitments.
You may feel the urge to finish other people’s tasks before doing yours because you do not want to disappoint them. This might lead you further away from your goal and in the end, you discover that you have not been productive on your part.
Poor delegation skills
Delegation is an important managerial skill that enhances the productivity of leaders and their teams. A lot of people have poor delegation skills because they are unable to relinquish even the smallest amount of control. If you are like that, you are overworking yourself trying to catch up with everything. This means you have no time to be really creative about the things that matter most to your productivity as a manager. Never delegating when you should, is not much proof of hard work as it is a sign of unproductiveness.
Not getting enough sleep
Adequate sleep and productivity are interconnected. A sleep-deprived individual might feel weak, irritable, or sickly. You can’t work optimally if you feel that way. Concentrating on the tasks at hand might prove difficult. Sometimes your body may forcefully demand rest during work hours and you find yourself sleeping. This prevents you from completing your task for the day and leads to being less productive.
Poor dieting and exercising
Your attitude towards eating and exercise affects how productive you are. If you have poor eating and exercising habits, you are putting your productivity at risk. It’s not enough to fill your stomach with food, you need to be sure you are eating the right foods. So, in addition to not skipping meals, you should eat quality meals.
Exercise is great not just for your body but for your mental health as well. You don’t need to do strenuous exercises, moderate exercises are good enough.
Allowing distractions
Distractions such as television, social media, and notification alerts surround us. Having a lack of will or making excuses not to put these things away while working is a bad habit. As much as the use of the internet is pivotal in our daily activities, excess use of it can be detrimental to our productivity. Distractions disrupt your workflow, get you sidetracked and then you find it difficult to get back into work mode.
Making excuses
Everyone makes mistakes sometimes but if you always chalk up your bad habits as mistakes you will never make the needed change. When you make excuses to justify things you do that make you less productive, you give yourself the moral license to do it again. Not punishing yourself for bad habits is the habit that guarantees zero productivity eventually.
Conclusion
Just like Rome wasn’t built in a day, you can’t kick harmful habits away completely in a day. It might take weeks, months or years to break free from habits that hinder productivity. The important thing is to keep working on change.