Being more productive isn’t about working harder, it’s about working smarter every day. Here are 12 bad habits that you can give up to increase work productivity in 2016.
 Image: Shutterstock
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1. Spending too much time on the web
Because most of us have internet access at work, it’s easy for us to look up a sudden question or problem that comes to our minds. That’s why Quora user Suresh Rathinam suggests that you write down the question you need an answer to in a notebook and then look up the information on the web after you finish your work.
2. Multitasking
While many people believe they are good at multitasking, scientific studies show that only 2% of the world’s population can effectively perform multiple tasks at once.
3. Constantly checking email
Being constantly online also means that many people are constantly checking their email multiple times a day. Every time you do this, you lose about 25 minutes of work. In addition, constantly checking email will make you more distracted.
4. Leaving the most important tasks for the end of the day
Many people start their workday by completing easy tasks and leaving the more difficult ones for later. This is a bad idea and a way for you to easily not complete important tasks. Many researchers have shown that human willpower decreases throughout the day.
5. Attending too many meetings
Nothing disrupts the flow of productivity more than an unnecessary meeting. With countless tools like email, messaging, and video chat at your fingertips, you can save face-to-face meetings for truly important issues.
 Attending too many unnecessary meetings can affect work productivity – Image: Shutterstock
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6. Sitting all day
Nilofer Merchant, a business consultant who has provided advice to several major companies, suggests a method that she has come up with: walking meetings. Instead of sitting at a coffee table, these meetings can involve walking and talking about 20 to 30 miles each week.
7. Hitting the snooze button on your alarm
Although hitting the snooze button may give you the feeling of having a little more time to rest, this action has more harmful effects than benefits. This is because when you wake up, your endocrine system begins to produce wakefulness hormones, helping you get ready for the day. By going back to sleep, you are slowing down this process. In addition, 9 minutes of “snooze” is not enough for your body to recover.
8. Not prioritizing
Some people believe that having multiple goals is the best way to ensure success, as if one idea doesn’t produce results, they still have many other options. Unfortunately, this approach is not effective. Billionaire Warren Buffett once helped his private pilot realize this. Buffett asked the pilot to write down the 25 things he wanted to do most before he died, but he said that instead of taking small steps to complete all of them, only choose 5 things that he thought were the most important, do them, and ignore the rest.
9. Overplanning
Many ambitious people try to organize their workday in great detail to maximize work productivity. However, not everything goes according to plan, and a counteracting factor can throw their entire day’s plan out the window. Therefore, you can try planning only 4 to 5 actual working hours per day. This way, you can also work more flexibly.
10. Not planning
Many people say that to achieve any long-term goal, you need to have a strategy to achieve it. Professor Robert Pozen from Harvard University advises that you should determine what your ultimate goal is, and then plan a series of steps you need to take to achieve it. Once you have completed half of the journey, you can review your work, make sure you are going in the right direction, and make any necessary adjustments.
11. Keeping your phone on your bedside
The LED screen of smartphones, tablets, and laptops emit blue light that can damage eyesight and inhibit the production of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep cycles. People with low melatonin levels are also more prone to depression.
12. Perfectionism
A larger factor that causes procrastination to occur, apart from laziness, is a fear that nothing can be done well. Philosopher and British author Alain de Botton wrote: “We only start working when the fear of doing nothing at all is greater than the fear of not doing it well”. A good way to reduce procrastination and change perfectionistic thinking is to skip unnecessary, excessive details and continue working.
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