Month: February 2016

There’s a ton of advice on how to improve your productivity—quick tips, simple hacks, and general guidelines.  But, unfortunately, if you have bad working habits, all those tips, hacks, and guidelines will do nothing for your productivity.

Before you can become a truly productive person, you need to eliminate some of those bad habits holding you back.  Here are a few to get you started.

Accepting Distractions

Technology can make it very difficult to remain focused.  Between texts and emails, apps and websites, switching to another piece of technology every 30 seconds or so is normal for the average Joe.  But how can you possibly stay productive if you’re breaking focus this much?  You need to find effective ways to eliminate distractions—shove your phone in a drawer, install a program that blocks certain websites for a specified amount of time, and fully log out of your email.  Whatever you decide to do, make it a daily part of your workday.

Overscheduling

Scheduling your tasks and activities can make people extremely productive.  But it’s easy to go overboard, like scheduling something for every hour of the 8-hour workday.  What happens when you’re given extra assignments or you fall behind on scheduled activities?  Everything will start to overlap, and you’ll quickly begin to feel stressed and unproductive.  And when you feel unproductive, it’s easy to be unproductive.

Overcommitting

The worst thing you can do to your productivity is to spend your entire day in presentations, in meetings, and on phone calls.  If you’re always in meetings, when do you actually get to work? Limit your time spent participating in these activities to the bare minimum—only when absolutely necessary.  You’ll start to find that when you do have meetings, they’re more substantial, and as an added benefit, people will start to consider your time as more valuable.

Working long hours

People often think that working longer hours equates to a more productive workday.  This is hardly the case, though.  Occasionally, the 12-hour workday is absolutely necessary—something new comes up or there’s a client emergency.  But if this becomes a habit, you’ll end up paying for it with your productivity.  You need to take breaks, leave your office for lunch, and pack up for home at the right time.  If you fail to do this, then your productivity will teeter off at some point during the afternoon and never come back.

Multitasking

You might think you’re super productive when you’re working on multiple things at one time but, really… you aren’t.  All you’re actually doing is failing to exert the right amount of effort and focus on the right tasks.  All tasks are not created equal, and if you treat all tasks like they are equal, then you’ll end up with mediocre output and a chaotic workload.  How can you stay productive with a workload that’s far from balanced?  You can’t.

Yes, it’s true.  Too much technology can lead to some rather serious issues… like more stress, less sleep, anti-social behavioral tendencies, and a lack of focus.  None of which sound all too pleasant.

But what choice do we have?  A lot of our daily activities are somehow connected to our phone, tablet, laptop, TV, or connected smart gadget.  And for some people, this daily reliance on technology has surged upwards into an addiction, rendering it difficult to make eye contact or to participate in a meaningful conversation.

It doesn’t have to be this way, though.  All you have to do is stand up for yourself.  Be aggressive and unshackle portions of your day from technology.

Establish tech-free zones. 

Tech-free zones are especially important at home around your family members.  Create areas where technology is not allowed—the kitchen table, your bed, and, yes, the bathroom.  Doing this will give you and your family more of an opportunity to connect with one another and to actually look at each other every now and then.

Disable notifications.

Break your day into parts and disable notifications during some of these times.  This can be sectioned off—two hours on and two hours off.  Or, you can try disabling notifications between the hours of 6 pm and 7 am.  Not only will you sleep better, but you’ll finally have the chance to stop working, giving you the time you need to fully de-stress.

Block apps and websites. 

There are programs available that will block websites and applications on your PC and connected devices.  This is helpful if you don’t want to completely disable your notifications—so your phone is still active, but you aren’t wasting your day to social media, smartphone games, and online shopping.  An app like RescueTime can block sites and other applications, but it can also monitor your habits to present you with an accurate picture of how you really spend your time on technology.  At this point, you can ask yourself, “Is it really worth it?”

Keep your mornings to yourself.

The time before work and after work are essential to your mental health.  If you spend this time on your phone answering emails and responding to text messages, you aren’t doing yourself any favors.  A huge chunk of your day is already devoted to these tasks, so why not give your mind a rest in the morning?  Take this time to relax, drink your coffee, and prep yourself for the day.

Hold off on responding.

A big reason technology can become so stressful to people is because of the whole “instant gratification” concept.  For instance, you receive a text message, and you instantly respond.  Then another one and another one and another one—all of which you respond to immediately.  After so long, you start to feel like people expect you to respond immediately, and this feeling is a surefire way to create anxiety.  No law says you have to respond to social media posts, text messages, or emails immediately.  So don’t do it.  Some people might be upset at first (like a spouse or coworker who is used to getting instant responses from you), but eventually, they’ll get it.  All you have to do is take a stand.