10 bad habits sabotaging your productivity

Being more productive is about working smarter, not harder, and making the most of each day. While this is no easy feat, getting more done in less time is a much more attainable goal if you’re not sabotaging yourself with bad habits. Following are 10 things you should stop doing now to become more productive.

1. Prioritising Work over Sleep
Arianna Huffington says in her sleep manifesto, The Sleep Revolution, a good night’s sleep has the power to increase productivity, happiness, smarter decision-making and unlock bigger ideas. As she explains, a recent McKinsey study shows the direct correlation between getting less sleep and workplace inefficiency. The trick for getting enough sleep is planning ahead and powering down at a reasonable time.

2. Impulsive Web Browsing Since most of us have access to the Internet at work, it’s easy to get sidetracked looking up the answer to a random question that just popped into your head. That’s why Quora user Suresh Rathinam recommends writing down these thoughts or questions on a notepad. This way, you can look up the information you want later, when you’re not trying to get work done.

3. Skipping Breakfast Our minds and our bodies are connected in a number of important ways, and getting the fuel we need doesn’t just mean resting up. Your first meal of the day is what kickstarts your metabolism and replenishes blood sugar levels so you can focus and be productive throughout the day. When blood sugar levels are low, it’s harder to focus and you’re likely to feel tired, irritable and impatient.

4. Putting Off Important Work Until Later in the Day
People often start off their day by completing easy tasks to get themselves rolling and leave their difficult work for later. This is a bad idea and one that frequently leads to the important work not getting done at all.

5. Checking Email Throughout the Day
Constant Internet access can also lead people to check email throughout the day. Sadly, each time you do this, you lose up to 25 minutes of work time. What’s more, the constant checking of email makes you dumber. Instead, strategy consultant Ron Friedman suggests quitting Outlook, closing email tabs and turning off your phone for 30-minute chunks of deep-diving work.

6. Taking too Many Meetings Nothing disrupts the f low of productivity like an unnecessary meeting. And with tools like email, instant messenger and video chat at your fingertips, it’s best to use meetings for introductions and serious discussions that should only be held in person.

7. Multitasking While many people believe they’re great at doing two things at once, scientific research has found that just 2% of the population is capable of effectively multitasking. For the rest of us, multitasking is a bad habit that decreases our attention spans and makes us less productive in the long run.

8. Failing to Prioritise Some people think having lots of goals is the best way to ensure success — if one idea fails, at least there are plenty more in reserve to turn to. Unfortunately, this sort of wavering can be extremely unproductive. Billionaire investment guru Warren Buf fett has the perfect antidote. Seeing that his personal pilot was not accomplishing his life goals, Buffett asked him to make a list of 25 things he wanted to get done before he died. But rather than taking little steps toward completing every one of them, Buffett advised the pilot to pick five things he thought were most important and ignore the rest.

9. Over-Planning Many ambitious and organised people try to maximise their productivity by meticulously planning out every hour of their day. Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned, and a sick child or unexpected assignment can throw a wrench into their entire day. Instead, you might want to try planning just four or five hours of real work each day, that way you’re able to be flexible later on.

10. Perfectionism More often than laziness the root of procrastination is the fear of not doing a good job. The only way to overcome procrastination is to abandon perfectionism and not fuss over details as you move forward. Pretending the task doesn’t matter and that it’s okay to mess up could help you get started faster.