Productivity is key to success. It helps you get more done in less time. When you’re able to say goodbye to time-wasting habits, you can focus on the things that matter the most. Productivity is not something you can achieve overnight.
It takes constant effort and dedication to be productive. While many of us have a long list of good habits that keep us productive, there are also a lot of bad habits that work against our productivity. Here are 8 bad habits that can destroy your productivity.
1. Trying To Do Everything
It’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks of work, but you can’t do everything. Accomplishing more in your workday requires a laser-like focus and concentration on the to-do list items that make the biggest impact on the company. While it may seem counterintuitive, you can avoid the “busy work trap” by setting aside time to focus on what matters most.
Trying to do everything is the biggest mistake you can make. Sometimes it’s better to do a few things really well than to do a lot of things badly. If you have a lot of tasks to do, you may think that multitasking will help you get more done, but the truth is, you’re just wasting your time.
Multitasking is extremely inefficient because it’s impossible to really focus on two or more tasks at once. You may think you’re being productive, but the truth is, you’re just wasting your time. When you try to do everything you end up doing nothing well.
2. Stop Being Perfect
Some people want to do everything perfectly. They want the perfect job, they want the perfect house, they want the perfect car, and they want to do everything perfectly. But the truth is that no one is perfect.
Everyone makes mistakes from time to time. If you are doing something perfectly, it means that you are not trying hard enough. Perfection is boring. It means that you have stopped trying to do anything new. You are in a comfort zone, but you are not growing. Stop looking for perfection and just do with what you have.
3. Know When To Take Breaks
Putting in a long day at the office is so last decade. In 2022, it’s all about taking a break and stepping away from your desk. Taking up meditation, exercising, or even going out for lunch can help you relieve stress and make you more productive.
It’s even been proven that taking a 20 minute break after 50 minutes of work can boost your productivity by as much as 44%! Of course, not every break is created equal. You wouldn’t want to take a break for an hour by leaving your desk and never coming back, would you?
A bad break will just make you more tired and less productive. If you’re looking for a way to take a break without losing out on your productivity, try taking a 5 minute walk around the office or moving to a different area of the office.
4. Stop Trying To Please Everyone
There are days that we are all just trying to make everyone happy. We feel that we need to do that to keep everyone in the office happy, but that’s just not the case. That’s not how it works. For one thing, you can never make everyone happy. You can’t please everyone. That’s just a fact.
So, you need to stop trying to make everyone happy all the time and start thinking of yourself first. That doesn’t mean you have to be selfish. It just means that you have to put yourself first. It means that you have to do what’s right for you. Just focus on your work and ignore others.
5. Defining Your Goals
Having a clear goal is one of the best ways to be productive at work. It may seem simple, but it actually works. If you have a good goal, you would be able to set a deadline and have a clear path to achieving it. For example, let’s say you have to finish a 10,000 words article by the end of the week.
This goal gives you a clear direction to follow. You could even set a deadline for each section of the article. You could set aside a few hours a day just for writing. This would help you a lot to stay on track and finish your article by the deadline.
6. Ignoring Important Task
There are all sorts of bad habits that can destroy productivity at work. But Task Ignoring is one of the worst you can have. Task Ignoring is the act of ignoring the tasks that you need to do.
This is bad because if you ignore the tasks that you need to do, you will never get anything done. It is like a large hole in a dam. As long as the hole is small, the water will continue to flow through, but if the hole is large enough, the water will stop flowing and the dam will collapse.
7. Get Rid Of Distractions
The workplace today can be quite distracting. If you are not careful, you can get into bad habits that leave you with less time to do the things you really want to do. Examples of distractions: Staying on social media sites all day, procrastination, and take smoke breaks every hour. Anything that is not adding value to your work, well, get rid of it!
8. Not Having Proper Routine
You’re setting yourself up for failure if you work whenever you feel like it. A work routine is necessary for setting your thoughts in the right frame of mind to be productive. Without one, you’ll always go into work mode cold, making it far more difficult to get into the zone.
Furthermore, doing things only when you feel like it gives you far too much control over your mental state. And, let’s face it, most of us don’t “feel” like working most of the time. Giving our changeable – and lazy – emotions power over our work is a recipe for disaster.
If you don’t have the right habits in place, it can be tough to get anything done. With this knowledge, we know that you can make the most of your workday and your work week when you start to develop a healthy mental attitude. So what are you waiting for? Put the tips we just went over into practice today.