Are you standing in the way of your own success?
Unfortunately, all of us can be prone to a bad work habit from time to time. But, luckily for us, habits can be cured and trained into becoming better habits.
Some of you might not even consider these to be bad habits because they don’t really have too much of an impact on your work, but over time they can accumulate into patterns of inefficiency, laziness, and other bad traits.
In order to reach your goals, see if you do any of these ten things, and eliminate them.
1. Avoid planning your day (or week)
If you can’t clearly plan out and prioritize your events and activities, you won’t be able to move forward with your goals. Make sure you are constantly previewing and updating your schedule so that you know what you need to do and what is the most important.
2. Reacting to e-mails as soon as they come in
In most cases, you might think it is more effective to respond to someone immediately. But chances are, you are constantly checking your e-mail instead of doing your work. It becomes more of a distraction then an asset.
3. Communicating inefficiently
When you are unable to properly convey messages to others, it might have saved you time when writing them, but it will all catch up to you when you need to constantly clarify any vague or unspecific messages. Don’t rush through, think through carefully.
4. Settling into a rigid routine
Routines are key for being productive. This is especially for important tasks that you do every day. Be flexible enough to change your approach when the situation demands it, but have a routine planned out.
5. Never taking breaks
It might seem like a good idea to work through your breaks to get more done, but it can take a toll on your productivity in the long run. You run the risk of burning out and losing focus a lot more quickly than if you take a short break.
6. Running late
Arrive when you say you are going to arrive in order to avoid falling behind on your work. When you are late, you might fall behind and be able to catch up in some situations, but sometimes things come up and you will have extra to do to catch up.
7. Procrastinating on tough projects
When you procrastinate, you can’t really be putting your best efforts forward when you have to scramble to complete it last minute. If you truly can’t handle something, make sure you delegate it out as soon as possible. Don’t set it aside.
8. Delaying hard decisions
The harder the decision, the quicker it needs to be made. And when you let an important decision linger, you never know when more work will pile on and you won’t have as much time or energy to devote to it.
9. Never saying no
Make sure you don’t say yes to everyone. Get comfortable with saying no to requests that you don’t need to accept or can’t handle at the time. When you say no, you can honor commitments you have already made and focus on yourself when you need to.
10. Multitasking
It may seem like you are saving time by multitasking, but the reality is that it distracts your mind and you aren’t able to complete things as thoroughly as you would if you were doing things one at a time.