Productivity Monday: Break Free From These 6 Bad Work Habits

Bad habits can impede your productivity big time. So if you’re a serious entrepreneur who wants to see serious results for her business, it’s about time you break free from bad work habits that are slowing you down.

1.       The habit of multi-tasking.  Are you the type that points your finger to something or someone when a task doesn't get finished on time? “The office printer is currently under maintenance so it’s not my fault if I can’t have these urgent documents printed.” See, if you’re not going to take responsibility of your actions, who will? The printer? 

There will be a lot of unfortunate circumstances in your journey as an entrepreneur. So no more excuses, just get your stuff done. Take the document to a print center.

2.       The habit of checking your email ‘crazy’ times a day.  How often do you check your emails? Every 5 minutes? 10 minutes? You’re wasting your time. Stop checking your email too much because this will only hinder you from focusing on things that you need to work on. Schedule an email time and do all email-related tasks within that time-frame. Say, 30-minutes of email time before you start your day, 10 minutes midday to check/attend to urgent emails, and another 30 minutes before you go to sleep. 

3.       The habit of having too much news time. There are too much news in a day especially online and you can get tempted to read on for hours if you don’t learn to control yourself. The best way to get effectively and efficiently updated with the latest goings on of your industry and society in general is to subscribe to the RSS feeds of top online news & business magazines. Then read them in one sitting, once a day.

4.       The habit of not cleaning your desk. Yes, I know you tell people a pile on your desk is how you do things – it’s a system of organizing things that works best for you. It’s organized chaos. Guess, what? Piles are actually signifies procrastination – an excuse to avoid organizing. They slow you down. They are not the best way to store your most important documents. So ditch the piles.

5.       The habit of not exercising. When things are too stressful and too hectic, you probably skip exercise because you simply don’t have the time. It’s actually at times like these when you need exercise the most. A good work out has the ability to boost your motivation and energy level.

6.       The habit of doing things haphazardly. When you don’t have the focus, you end up with a half-done task. Or if you are too hasty to finish a task because you want to save time, the quality of your work suffers. BIG mistake – you may need to do the job all over again until you get it right. So if you want to save time, do things right the first time.