Being more productive at work does not mean working 10 hours a day or working during weekends, but rather
managing your business and tasks smarter and making good use of every hour at work. So often many of us continue indulging our bad habits until they slowly creep up on us and cause unforeseen damage.
It has become difficult to focus on one task in order to complete it and move on to the next one. Being more productive in your day is a great evidence of your activity, and a clear witness of your journey in the right way to reach what you seek, and a distinctive sign of determination to succeed. But wasting time and blaming the circumstances of life will bring you an utter failure, remorse, and disappointment.
Here are some bad habits you need to avoid to make the hours you spend at work more useful and productive:
1-
Browsing the Internet
continuously:
Most of the people have access to the Internet at their workplace, and during work a lot of random questions pass into the person's mind, which may prompt him to open the
search engine and find the appropriate answer.
In order to increase your productivity and increase your focus, experts advise writing these questions or inquiries on a piece of paper or on a text file on the computer you are working on and then search for the information you want at a later time.
2- Working on multiple tasks simultaneously:
Many people think that multitasking is great and special, but scientific research has found that only 2% of people are able to do this.
As for the rest of the people, multitasking is a bad habit that may make them not complete any task and make them less productive in the long run.
3- Checking the e-mail inbox all day:
The ability to permanently access the Internet at work makes some people check their e-mail frequently throughout the day, and unfortunately, this habit - according to what studies have indicated - makes you lose 25 minutes of work time every time you check your e-mail and respond to one of them.
Alternatively, you can schedule this task and respond to incoming emails once every 3 hours, for example, depending on the nature of the work you do.
4- Postponing the most important tasks until the end of the day:
Often people start their day at work by completing easy tasks that do not need much focus and leaving the most difficult tasks for a later time. Unfortunately, this is a wrong idea and often leads to not accomplishing those tasks at all.
The researchers found that most people have a limited amount of energy and willpower that gradually decreases throughout the day, so it is better for you to accomplish the most difficult and important tasks at the beginning of the work day, and leave the normal tasks for a later time as they do not need much focus anyway.
5- Scheduling a lot of meetings during the day:
Nothing lowers your productivity at work like doing unnecessary meetings, be it in-person meetings or through instant messaging programs or video calls.
Successful people recommend not accepting the meeting request unless there is a clear plan and points in writing to be discussed in the meeting with an expected time for that meeting.
6- Failure to set priorities:
The famous American businessman and the third rich man in the world, Warren Buffett, tells us that the captain of his pilot always fails to achieve his goals, so he asked him to write a list of 25 things he wanted to achieve before he died, and instead of giving him simple tips for completing each item on the list, Warren advised the pilot by leaving only 5 things and ignoring the rest of the things, and the result was that he achieved these five things within two years.
Warren adds that setting priorities is very important not only at the professional level and in the field of work, but on the personal level of each person.
You may work all day to find yourself needing to complete many of the remaining tasks without realizing why, but by getting rid of these habits, making plans and setting priorities, you will find that you become more productive and profitable.