While you probably do many things every day that contribute to your success, it’s likely you also have some habits that are making it much harder than necessary for you to achieve your most significant results.
There are two types of behaviors we engage in throughout our day: deliberate actions and habits. Habits are usually unconscious actions, but they shape your life in the same ways that conscious actions do. By becoming more aware of your habits, you are better positioned to evaluate these habits, and replace the unproductive ones with those that serve you better.
Harmful Habits & Remedies
Below are the most common productivity-hindering habits that I observe in my clients, along with a brief overview of the remedies I suggest, and some helpful resources.
1. Multitasking
Problem: Do you frequently switch between multiple tasks rather than dedicate sustained attention to one task? Research proves that doing so impedes deep work and progress.
Solution: Practice attention management with exercises designed to improve your ability to focus. Just like building muscles at the gym, learning to sustain your attention on a single task is a skill that can be developed through repetition.
Resources: Attention Management: How To Create Success and Gain Productivity Every Day. Designed to be read in just about an hour. And don’t miss the free Discussion Guide here.
2. Being Constantly Reactive
Problem: Do you find yourself constantly checking emails, social media, and your team communication platform rather than proactively making progress on an important task?
Solution: Although we are most used to thinking of distractions as coming from other people or our external environments, our brains habituate to the distractions we experience from our digital devices. Then, even in the moments when our devices are silent, we expect a distraction, so we seek one out, distracting ourselves! The solution? Take steps to control your technology and stop allowing your technology to control you.
Resource: Control Your Tech
3. Procrastinating
Problem: Do you delay tasks that you find stressful or less interesting? Up to 20% of people are chronic procrastinators, so if this is you, you’re not alone. However, procrastinating can cause a backlog of work, leading to rushed and disorganized efforts when deadlines approach.
Solution: Learn to break down big tasks into smaller parts, take advantage of activation energy, set cues, reward yourself, enlist others, and honor your mood. For details, see the resource just below.
Resource: How to Stop Procrastinating and Improve Productivity
4. Overworking at the Expense of Your Health and Wellbeing
Problem: Do you work long hours without breaks, skip meals, and forego regular exercise? This can lead to fatigue, burnout, reduced productivity, and long-term health issues.
Solution: Learn how to get more done in less time. Work fewer hours per week and fully disconnect when you take vacation time. If you manage a team, model work-life balance for your direct reports.
Resources: How To Prevent Burnout Before It Happens To You And Your Team and The 7-Day Burnout Restoration Handbook
5. Failing to Document Processes
Problem: Do you lack clear, documented processes for tasks and projects? If so, you’re not working as effectively and efficiently as you could be.
Solution: Take the time to record screencasts or create written documents, including any relevant hyperlinks, of the most important step-by-step procedures you perform on a regular basis. As you document each one, notice if there is anything you can do to make the process more efficient. Keep all of your documentation handy, such as in a folder on your desktop, or create a keystroke shortcut that opens the documentation folder for you.
My friend, hall of fame speaker, and sales expert, Chuck Reaves, has a GREAT process for this that he calls a “DIY App,” or “YAP” for short. (By “app,” he really just means a document with related shortcuts.) I’ve created several YAPs for myself and they save me a ton of time.
Resource: Learn about Chuck Reaves’ “YAPs.”
6. Failing To Use A Workflow Management System
Problem: A workflow management system will help you organize all the details of your personal and professional life. By failing to use one, you are forced to reinvent methods for accomplishing tasks, wasting significant resources, skyrocketing inefficiencies, and building unnecessary stress.
Solution: Learn to use a workflow management system like the Empowered Productivity System. Empowered Productivity is a collection of habits and behaviors for storing, organizing, prioritizing, managing, and executing all of your commitments, communication, and information. When you learn this system, you’ll gain increased control over all of your responsibilities.
Resource: How To Organize Your Life For Success: The Importance of “Workflow Management”
7. Skipping Regular Reviews
Problem: Do you regularly review and organize your files, tasks, and schedules? Failing to do so can make you feel disorganized, overwhelmed, and even defeated.
Solution: Systematically reviewing and organizing projects, tasks, and schedules is an important part of the Empowered Productivity System. When you participate in Empowered Productivity training, you learn how to routinely complete these reviews that will keep you on top of all the details of your personal and professional life.
Resources: Empowered Productivity Training For Teams and Empowered Productivity Training For Individuals
8. Neglecting Your Task List
Problem: Are you failing to use a task list? Or do you forget to regularly update your task list? If so, you probably miss some deadlines and forget some tasks.
Solution: A task list is a critical piece of managing all the details of your personal and professional life. But no piece of software will solve your problem if you don’t know the best way to use it. Learn my method for navigating your action plan to achieve your goals.
Resource: From To-Do To Done: How To Go From Busy To Productive By Mastering Your To-Do List
9. Losing Track of Notes
Problem: Do you sometimes fail to take organized notes during meetings? Do you lose track of the notes, find yourself flipping through your notebooks to find what you need, or miss important action items from your notes? This can lead to lost or incomplete information and a failure to follow up on tasks to which you’ve committed.
Solution: When taking notes for learning purposes, like in a workshop, write notes by hand (either with a handwriting app or on paper – this helps you learn). In other types of meetings, write or type, it doesn’t matter. Then add this important step: at the end of the meeting, transfer any action items to your task list. If you’re using a paper and pen, you can often throw away the notes after transferring what you need from them into a workflow management system such as the Empowered Productivity System.
Resource: Three Steps To Take Better Meeting Notes
10. Letting Your Inbox Overflow
Problem: Do you allow your emails to pile up in your inbox, adding flags to the important ones? If so, you’re likely causing yourself unnecessary time, effort, and stress.
Solution: Create an email folder called “Old Messages” and move all but the most recent day or two of messages into this folder. Anything you needed will still be there, but face it, you probably weren’t going to do anything with those old messages, anyway. Your inbox should be for processing messages, not for storing them. Deal with the remaining emails with the goal of getting them out of your inbox. Move tasks to your list, save what you need to save (in a folder called “saved emails.”), and delete what you can. Eliminating digital clutter will free up space in your brain.
11. Ignoring Physical Clutter
Problem: Do you ignore physical clutter? This will only work for so long. Research shows that allowing clutter to build up in your physical environment adds to your mental load and hinders your ability to focus.
Solution: First, break larger decluttering tasks into smaller pieces. Instead of trying to clean your entire desk, try to put one small pile of papers back into place. Second, pair a habit you have with a habit you want to have. For example, if you always take a walk in the morning, pair this with tidying up for 10 minutes before you leave for the walk. For most things that don’t get “put away,” this is because you haven’t designated where “away” is.
Resource: Does A Cluttered Desk Hurt Performance? A Look At The Science
Bonus Resource: Email me (mt @ maurathomas.com) and I’ll send you a complimentary PDF copy of my first book, Personal Productivity Secrets: Do what you never thought possible with your time and attention, and regain control of your life! Chapters 8 and 10 have a wealth of information on dealing with physical and digital clutter.
12. Interrupting Others
Problem: Do you stop and act every time it occurs to you that you need to talk to someone? If so, you’re likely to generate a lot of frustration. First, you interrupt your work and your train of thought. Then, either you miss the other person and receive a message back at an inopportune time, or you interrupt her.
Solution: You need a Talk-To list, which is an Empowered Productivity strategy for effective communication for those you work closely with and/or communicate with frequently. As you think of things you need to communicate to a person on your list, create tasks that start with their name in the subject line, along with whatever you need to say to them. When you inevitably see that person throughout your day, you can refer to your Talk-To list to ensure that you have covered all the items you thought of while they were not present.
Resource: Effective Communication: Use A Talk-To List
13. Failing To Make Information Self-Serve
Problem: Workplaces rely too heavily on synchronous communication, which happens in real-time. With more offices going remote or hybrid, this can create unnecessary bottlenecks and delay teams from achieving their most significant results.
Solution: Lean into asynchronous communication, which is a type of communication that doesn’t require two or more people to be talking concurrently. You can record a message on Zoom or on a voice recorder on your phone, and then attach the recording to an email. You can upload a document to a shared server and ask team members to post comments. Making important documents available in a centralized location allows employees to access them as needed at whatever time they are trying to complete their work.
Resource: Everyone Wants To Work Here
The Case For Behavior Management
If you want to replace habits that hinder your productivity with habits that help you achieve your most significant results, then it’s useful to understand the foundational principles of behavior management.
When I train teams to use Empowered Productivity, I include a module called “Performance Rewired: Transform Your Habits to Change Your Life.” This module helps participants anchor what they learn in the bedrock of long-lasting transformation.
