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Silent killers: 10 habits that prevent you from working well
Ian Godlewski researches productivity, self-improvement and project management and writes about it on TimeCamp and Pick the Brain blogs. A stable work schedule helps us manage our lives much better. We feel stable doing the same thing every day, but we often don’t realize that some of these habits undermine performance. They may even help us to be more efficient. Here are 10 of these habits.
1. With each break, your concentration decreases. It doesn’t help you focus or work faster – on the contrary, you’re distracted and can’t concentrate when you’re always waiting for the next puff. If you want to be more productive and enjoy your work, quit smoking altogether or at least during working hours.
2. We forget that coffee stimulates the brain only in certain doses. The acceptable daily level of consumption for healthy people is about 400 mg, which is about four cups of ground coffee. Within these limits, coffee can stimulate areas of the brain responsible for planning, attention, and concentration. When they are exceeded, it has the opposite effect: it awakens anxiety, irritability, anxiety, so do not get carried away.
3. If you choose music you know and love while working, your brain produces dopamine, which increases arousal rather than focus. It is better to choose soothing music - classics or ambient. Don’t play albums that you know – look for something new that will help you relax and play the role of quiet background noise, which studies have shown increases focus.
4. When you finish a business, you may think about how difficult it was, how much time it took, and that you need a break. That may be true, but be careful. It happens like this: you drink coffee, chat, read Facebook, make a sandwich - and now one award has turned into many. Try to articulate what a single reward for a difficult task should look like, choose it, set a break time in advance, and stick to it.
5. Learning something new is extremely important for professional development and business expansion. You need to learn as much as possible. But you can not allow your studies to distract you from the necessary work. Set aside time for training.
6. Keeping in touch with other team members is productive. It helps to get answers quickly and get back to business. But if the issue turns into an unnecessary discussion, it is extremely detrimental to productivity, and soon everyone starts to get distracted. A great solution is to use Skype or other messengers to communicate quickly and compactly.
7. Meetings allow the exchange of ideas, but they kill time and productivity. Try to change the structure of your meetings. So that they are productive and do not eat up valuable time, clearly set the time, agenda and goals of the meeting. Invite only the right people, lead them by agenda items and do not let them get distracted from the topic.
8. Distractional tasks Stop working on everything. Too often, you need to answer an email very quickly, solve a work problem, fix something else, while doing your main task. Rank your business from the most important to the least important. Get a notebook and write down all the little things that come to mind - you will deal with them later.
9. You can work a lot, but you can work smart. Some sit in the office late into the night trying to convince themselves and others that they are extremely productive. In fact, they are overworked, overloaded and dispersed. Make it a rule not to work a minute more than necessary. Go home, talk to your family, take time for your hobbies and holidays. There is no task to do the most, there is a task to do very well.
10. When you answer yes to any request for help, it looks like you are very busy. But you are busy with someone else’s work, and you can not devote enough time and attention to your business. Saying no is difficult, but it will get easier over time. Some people may be offended, but your job should be a bigger priority for you than their job.
If you have time to finish your own chores, great if you help a colleague — but only if your productivity remains a priority. published
P.S. And remember, just by changing our consumption – together we change the world!
Source: ideanomics.ru/? p=3691
1. With each break, your concentration decreases. It doesn’t help you focus or work faster – on the contrary, you’re distracted and can’t concentrate when you’re always waiting for the next puff. If you want to be more productive and enjoy your work, quit smoking altogether or at least during working hours.
2. We forget that coffee stimulates the brain only in certain doses. The acceptable daily level of consumption for healthy people is about 400 mg, which is about four cups of ground coffee. Within these limits, coffee can stimulate areas of the brain responsible for planning, attention, and concentration. When they are exceeded, it has the opposite effect: it awakens anxiety, irritability, anxiety, so do not get carried away.
3. If you choose music you know and love while working, your brain produces dopamine, which increases arousal rather than focus. It is better to choose soothing music - classics or ambient. Don’t play albums that you know – look for something new that will help you relax and play the role of quiet background noise, which studies have shown increases focus.
4. When you finish a business, you may think about how difficult it was, how much time it took, and that you need a break. That may be true, but be careful. It happens like this: you drink coffee, chat, read Facebook, make a sandwich - and now one award has turned into many. Try to articulate what a single reward for a difficult task should look like, choose it, set a break time in advance, and stick to it.
5. Learning something new is extremely important for professional development and business expansion. You need to learn as much as possible. But you can not allow your studies to distract you from the necessary work. Set aside time for training.
6. Keeping in touch with other team members is productive. It helps to get answers quickly and get back to business. But if the issue turns into an unnecessary discussion, it is extremely detrimental to productivity, and soon everyone starts to get distracted. A great solution is to use Skype or other messengers to communicate quickly and compactly.
7. Meetings allow the exchange of ideas, but they kill time and productivity. Try to change the structure of your meetings. So that they are productive and do not eat up valuable time, clearly set the time, agenda and goals of the meeting. Invite only the right people, lead them by agenda items and do not let them get distracted from the topic.
8. Distractional tasks Stop working on everything. Too often, you need to answer an email very quickly, solve a work problem, fix something else, while doing your main task. Rank your business from the most important to the least important. Get a notebook and write down all the little things that come to mind - you will deal with them later.
9. You can work a lot, but you can work smart. Some sit in the office late into the night trying to convince themselves and others that they are extremely productive. In fact, they are overworked, overloaded and dispersed. Make it a rule not to work a minute more than necessary. Go home, talk to your family, take time for your hobbies and holidays. There is no task to do the most, there is a task to do very well.
10. When you answer yes to any request for help, it looks like you are very busy. But you are busy with someone else’s work, and you can not devote enough time and attention to your business. Saying no is difficult, but it will get easier over time. Some people may be offended, but your job should be a bigger priority for you than their job.
If you have time to finish your own chores, great if you help a colleague — but only if your productivity remains a priority. published
P.S. And remember, just by changing our consumption – together we change the world!
Source: ideanomics.ru/? p=3691
