6 Bad Habits That Kill Your Productivity

Sometimes it is hard to be productive enough simply because we don’t know how to prioritize our tasks and distribute working hours in a right way. It makes us stressed out, confused, and upset, and we can’t focus on work properly. You come to your office and don’t know how to make yourself work because you spend hours on coffee breaks and messengers? Learn how to cope with that with our handy tips.

1. Lack of Planning

You have a list of all your tasks, and you are going to do them all, but you have no idea when exactly. As a result, you either can’t meet the deadline or start too fast and don’t have the energy at the midpoint.

It may sound obvious but get a paper planner or work productivity apps to organize your work. It will really help you not to forget anything and go on with proper time management throughout the day.

P.S. Keep track of your workload and try to distribute your working hours evenly. This will help to avoid burnout and work at a comfortable pace. It will also allow you to clearly demonstrate that you are busy in case if someone decides to give you some extra work.

2. The Time Killers

Checking social media and reading chats in messengers is what you end up doing when decide to take a 5-minute break and eventually get distracted for an hour. They take your time away without bringing anything useful in return. In the end, you are late for everything.

If your job doesn’t involve working with social networks and messengers, then there is nothing significant happening for you there. Turn off all notifications except in the chat with your coworkers. Even if you’re incredibly self-disciplined and don’t check your social networking apps the moment you receive a notification, you still put some thought into who sent the message and what they said.

Soon you’ll notice that you have more time and the level of stress is reduced as tons of messages a day don’t drive you crazy.

3. You Can't Say No

You have a reputation for being a responsive person, and that is why people come to you for advice, to ask for help or to invite you for a cup of coffee. But your consent is good for your “visitors” and bad for you. Your precious time is being stolen, and the amount of work is being increased.

Try to be more selfish: analyze the situation while keeping in mind how busy you are. If you have some spare time, then why not help someone. However, if everything is just going down in flames, give priority to your own business.

4. Do Everything on Your Own

The proverb “If you want a thing done well, do it yourself” sounds a bit arrogant. The idea that no one is able to replace you can feed your sense of self-importance, but it is far from reality. Indeed, you can do something better than someone else, but your colleagues will do just as well with many of your tasks. Moreover, you will free up some time for yourself.

If you feel like you can’t cope with the amount of work, don’t be shy to ask for help.

5. You Are Comparing Yourself to Others

You are trying your best, but your coworkers do things faster while you spend your time worrying about how you lag behind them. Everyone works at their own pace, so comparing yourself to your colleagues won’t do any good. Besides, a higher speed does not mean greater efficiency.

It is much better to compare current results with your own previous ones. Set yourself a goal that you want to achieve and think of how to do better.

6. You Practice Multitasking

What looks good on your resume might not be that efficient in practice. Switching from one task to another is also a job that takes time away. As a result, you do your tasks much longer than if you proceeded consistently.

Leave your superpower for emergencies. When not all hands on deck are needed, do the tasks one after another. If that makes sense, combine them into similar groups.