8 Productivity Mistakes You Might Be Making Every Day
Do you
ever find there aren’t enough hours is the day? While many people try hard
to be as productive as possible, they often find themselves getting distracted.
However, making every day fruitful is much easier if you can first ditch
productivity-sucking activities.
Check out
these eight common mistakes people make when it comes to productivity.
1. Treating cheating as a reward
People
often decide to treat themselves if they are doing something they find
difficult, such as dieting, saving money, exercising or working. However, if
someone treats themselves to a dress after a week of saving, this undermines
the achievement they have made. It can even encourage you to ditch your plan
entirely, as you’ve already been ‘bad’.
Try to
view the act of you achieving your goals as the treat. You wanted to improve
yourself – and now you are well on your way!
2. Planning unnecessary meetings
Unnecessary
meetings can suck all of the productivity out of someone’s working day. Often
meetings are overly long and pointless, pulling people away from the tasks they
were working on. A good solution to this is instead of arranging a meeting, see
if you can speak with the person in another way. Skype, texting, emailing and
phone calls are all efficient ways to communicate on important matters, while
still focusing on your own projects.
3. Multitasking
While many
people believe that they can do two tasks at once with ease, research has
discovered that most people become less efficient while attempting to multitask. Doing multiple tasks tends to decrease their attention
span and productivity, so try concentrating on one task at a time for great,
productive results.
4. Browsing the web
As most
people have access to the web at both work and home, it can be easy to get
side-tracked and find yourself online. Many people plan on briefly checking
social media or checking the answer to a question, but end up staying online
for much longer than intended.
A good
solution to this productivity mistake is to write down what you wanted to look
at online, put it to the side, and then finish off the task you were doing
before checking.
5. Putting off hard tasks
People are
often tempted to start their days with their easiest tasks. However, saving the
hard jobs for later in the day can mean they don’t actually get finished at
all. The best time to do the hard work is first thing, as that is when you
have the most willpower. On top of that,
getting your least favorite job out of the way is likely to put you in a great
mood for the rest of the day!
6. Over-planning
When
people have a busy day coming up, they tend to plan every hour of the day in
advance so they can fit everything in. However if you start running behind on
schedule, you can find yourself becoming stressed out and failing to achieve
everything you wanted to do.
Try to
plan about five hours of important work to do, and leave the rest of the day to
deal with any other issues. This means you get both elements of control and
flexibility.
7. Hitting the snooze button
Most
people like to hit the snooze button and get an extra 10 minutes in bed. Even
though it can be tempting to hit the snooze button every morning, it is
actually better
for you to get up.
When you
first wake up, your body starts releasing alertness hormones to get you up and
ready for the day. Every time you go hit snooze, you slow down this process –
and as you are only snoozing, it is unlikely you are getting any essential
extra sleep anyway.
8. Thinking about the big picture
Having a
life or work plan is a fantastic way to make sure you keep progressing towards
your goals. However, thinking about the big picture while you’re working can
leave you feeling worried and overwhelmed. Save the life planning for when you
aren’t working, and while you are working, try to focus on the immediate task
you are doing. Every task you do is working towards your goals – slowly but
surely, you are on your way!
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/8-productivity-mistakes-you-might-making-every-day.html?ref=mail&mtype=goal_reminder&mid=20161101_with_thumbnail&uid=687414&hash=707e797f7e757e6d794c856d747b7b3a6f7b79&action=read_more&goal_id=24&token=d0e3e4b03809d240b52d71f8a6770fa9
BY AMY JOHNSON
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