Everyone has habits they live with; they are either good, leading us to be productive in our daily activities, or bad, reducing our productivity level and eating into our time. Today, where time is a precious commodity, maintaining productivity is necessary for personal and professional success. However, numerous habits can quietly sabotage our best intentions and diminish our ability to achieve our goals efficiently. This article will uncover and explain counterproductive habits for your understanding. By gaining insight into these detrimental behaviors, we can take proactive steps to break free from their grip and pave the way for a more productive and fulfilling life. So, let’s dive deep into the world of habits that threaten to undermine our productivity and learn how to overcome them.
15 Habits That Destroy Productivity
1. Self-doubt:
Not believing in yourself is a great enemy of productivity. No one ever did great in anything without first considering they could be something. Stop self-doubt by talking yourself daily into believing your day can be productive and that you have what it takes to meet up.
2. Procrastination:
Leaving for tomorrow distorts your productivity. Why postpone it to tomorrow when you can do it now? When you postpone tasks, backlogs of work pile up, and seeing so much work can sap your energy.
3. Indecision:
The inability to make a decision quickly can reduce your productivity, as it will always cost you time that would have been used to handle a task. You can write out your options the night before, weigh them, and decide what you want.
4. Multitasking:
Trying to do one thing at a time kills productivity; it makes you slow as you try to concentrate on more than one task. Take your jobs one at a time; this gives you speed and helps you measure your work for each day.
5. Excessive screen time:
This is very bad as it detaches you from the present world, distracts you, and affects your eyes because of the blue light. One of the ways to work on this is by turning off notifications and keeping your phones away when having meetings with family, friends, and colleagues.
6. Perfectionism:
Wanting to get everything done perfectly is a bad habit that steals productivity as you spend more time on one task instead of getting other things done. You should know that getting things done well, not perfectly, is the goal.
7. Saying “yes” to everything:
This is a productivity killer, as you are always everywhere helping others achieve their productivity goals while not doing anything that takes you closer to your goals. Learn to say “no” to activities that do not contribute to you reaching your goals, especially if they’re not urgent or probably life and death.
8. Rushing in the morning:
Always rushing out in the morning is not a good habit, as you either need to remember to pick something essential or leave something important out of place, which leaves you unsettled almost throughout the day. You can wake up twenty minutes before your wake-up time to get everything in place or all you need in place the night before. When you do this, you have enough time to yourself and will not need to rush out of the house.
9. Doing the easiest job first:
This also destroys productivity because when you do all the simple tasks first during the early hours of the day, you get tired when you finish the easy tasks. You should prioritize the most difficult tasks, tackle them first, then face the little tasks or even delegate them.
10. Lack of Daily or Weekly Evaluation:
Not sitting back after the day or week to evaluate your day destroys productivity, as you must keep track of your progress. When you assess your day or week, you get to know if you did well and discover the many things that did not make you do well. You can decide to do a daily or weekly evaluation.
11. Poor Communication:
Poor communication destroys productivity, whether at the workplace or on a personal level. When you do not know or understand what to do, you do not do the right thing. So, ensure you know what you need to do before taking steps.
12. Poor listening:
Hearing is different from listening; many people need to correct these two. When conversing, you must ensure your undivided attention is given so you can hear and understand what is being communicated.
13. Planning too much:
Planning too much without taking steps is not healthy for productivity. Most people take time to draw and map out plans for their day or a project; they go into so much detail and fail to take steps. You must ensure you take steps after much planning.
14. Inadequate Sleep:
More sleep is needed to maintain productivity. When you stay up all night and refuse to give yourself rest, you find it difficult to concentrate as the body struggles with fatigue and can’t do much. You should give your body enough rest to be alert during the day. Fixing a sleep schedule would be very helpful.
15. Chattering:
This is a productivity destroyer, as you spend time that would have been used for important tasks on the phone with a friend or talking about another. Note those friends or colleagues you always spend time with and learn to say “No” to them or tell them politely, “I have a lot on my hands.” When you do this twice or three times, they will stop coming, and you will have enough time on your hands to concentrate better.
Conclusion
Bad habits reduce our productivity level and keep us from concentrating on the most important stuff that counts. The beautiful thing is that they can be unlearned. Now that you know what these habits are, you can start your journey of dropping them and picking up new habits that would boost your productivity level.