Hi, my name is Nancy. And thank you for joining us today as we discuss seven habits to avoid, to become highly productive. You want to accomplish millions of things: Travel the world, spend time with family and friends, or even read more books. The list goes on and on. However, how do you pack any more into a single 24-hour day that is already overflowing? The majority of people will add items to their list of what must get done today.
However, it’s simpler. Just start by subtracting the things that are killing your productivity. Therefore, if you want to jumpstart your productivity to accomplish more than you have ever achieved before, you need to avoid these seven specific habits. Once you get rid of these habits, your productivity will skyrocket. Number one: Focusing on minor details, not results.
Productivity is not about staying busy and cramming more into every hour. It is also not about how organized your calendar looks, or handling zero emails in your inbox. Productivity is about the results that you produce. If you don’t increase the results in the things that matter, you will not increase your productivity. You are just doing more and more busy work, more efficiently.
Highly productive people do to make things happen, and they do not get overcome by fear. Yes, you need to look at your progress, but don’t forget to look at your results. Number two: Checking devices, first thing in the morning. Do you check your phone within the first hour of every day? Do you check your email before you even get to work? If you’re like most people who do these two things, first thing in the morning, stop it.
It is one of the worst things that you can do. It ruins your focus, productivity, motivation. After all, consuming useless information like social media, checking email, and responding to messages, places your brain in the state of reaction. As a result, you are flooded with urgent tasks before you even have a chance to work on your own goals. Yes, it does seem like an innocent thing to do, but since you’re not at work, you really can’t do anything about it yet.
It just reminds you and prevents you from being in the present, whereas highly productive people take steps toward their goals before they let the demands of the day interfere. Embrace focus on your peak and mental, emotional, and physical health first. That is; not checking out social media or even watching the news. To stop these distractions from first thing in the morning, put your phone on airplane mode before you go to bed at night.
You can even set up a ‘do not disturb’ mode, so you don’t get notifications the first hour every day. I’ve done this for years, and it works wonderful for me. Make these habits part of your environment, and you will quickly beat these bad habits. Number three: Distractions during work. Did you know that the average person gets interrupted every three minutes and five seconds? It’s no wonder that you struggle to remain focused.
Now, if your workspace is cluttered or disorganized, it will negatively affect your mind, increase your stress and impact your emotions. Just looking at a messy desk impacts your mental health. So, how do highly productive people protect themselves from distractions and constant notifications to perform the tasks that they need to get done? Well, first, they don’t work in a cluttered disorganized environment.
They keep things clean and organized. You can help yourself by placing your phone on airplane mode, and turning off email notifications. Also, close all tabs, browsers and applications that you don’t need open for the task at hand. Here is a big tip: Don’t listen to podcasts or radio stations while working. Instead, have the same song repeat over and over, as it’s going to dramatically improve your focus.
Number four: Working until exhausted. Working till you’re exhausted is not suitable for yourself or your productivity. Highly productive people don’t work until they’re exhausted. They know to stop long before they get to that point. Remember that your cognitive abilities are limited. And on average, we only have three hours of peak mental performance available to us each day.
Use these hours for your essential tasks. Of course, you can still work after those hours, but once you notice that your performance is slipping, stop for the day. Also, don’t forget to take regular breaks during the day to help you re-energize and re-focus. Breaks will significantly improve your mental performance. Number five: Working without priorities. Remember that all items on your to-do list do not have the same importance.
You want to focus your energy on the most critical tasks, not necessarily the most urgent ones. Before you start your day, rank your tasks in order of importance, to dedicate your best hours to what will get you the most results. Do not do everything at once. Therefore, look at what tasks needs to be done. Select the biggest top three priorities, and those are the ones you’re going to do today.
The next task, number six: Finding time to do things. Highly productive people do not find time to do things that they want to do. Highly productive people make time to complete tasks. Therefore, a highly productive person will schedule and make sure to complete the task. They know how to organize and manage their time, so that all their priorities for work and life are achieved.
If something is important to you, you just need to set it in your calendar and build your schedule around that one important thing. Number seven: Failing to set boundaries. I cannot tell you the number of small business owners who have said to me that they work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They even call me on a Saturday or Sunday at any hour of the day or night. Bragging about working 12 hours or more a day, is not a sign of being productive, it’s a sign of poor boundaries.
Many people take on projects or tasks that they don’t want to do, but they do so because they feel obligated. Stop doing this. It is draining your time and energy. It’s also creating resentment. You need to set boundaries for your time and not let others take away from what’s important. Highly productive people, they’re not rude, but they do gain respect for showing that they focus on the things, people, activities, that matter most to them. You to guard your workflow.
If your best time for creative work is in the afternoons, then schedule your phone calls for the morning. But understanding how you work, you can help yourself achieve the best results and know your weaknesses that are holding you back. Learn to say ‘no’. Learn to say ‘no’ and save yourself time and aggravation. You don’t have to be rude, like guard your time like it is your last day on this earth.
Spend some time finding the best workflow that works for you and schedule your day around it. These seven habits to avoid will jumpstart your productivity and kick it into high gear. Let me know which productivity to avoid, that was the most beneficial to you, can be the one in the comments. Also, please hit that subscribe button, like button, notification bell; so that YouTube notifies you when I release new content. Until next time, as always, be safe.
