To some extent, everyone feels pressure to be productive. But in the age of social media, remote work, and constant entertainment, it’s harder than ever to avoid distractions and stay on task.
While productivity is not the be-all or sum-total of your worth as a person, it is important to develop productivity skills and keep up with your responsibilities. It may not be possible to get every task done every day. But, potentially, you could be more productive than you are currently. You likely have more than one bad habit that gets in the way of your productivity, and getting into the right mindset can make all the difference in how you approach and get your tasks done.
7 Habits That Harm Your Productivity
In the end, productivity is the simple act of getting things done. It may be at work or at home, for yourself or someone else, but the basic idea is the same: being productive means being able to complete the tasks on your to-do list.
Different people have different standards for how productive they are, and that’s okay. What matters most is your mindset – do your expectations match your ability to follow through? In this sense, learning how to be more productive is as much a mental health exercise as it is a logistical challenge. Here are seven bad habits that may be harming your productivity, not to mention your overall well-being.
1. Multitasking
Let’s get straight to the chase: Multitasking isn’t real. When you’re tackling multiple projects at once, you may feel like you’re getting more done, but that’s an illusion. You are actually switching quickly between tasks, which is something your brain was not designed to do. Ultimately, this means that you do both tasks less efficiently. Some research shows that multitasking can reduce your overall productivity by up to 40%.
Multitasking not only hurts your productivity in terms of immediate results. It can lead to chronic issues like stress, anxiety, and depression, which hurt your productivity in the long run.
What do you do instead: Instead of trying to do everything at once, prepare yourself to focus on one thing at a time. Even if you start out with short 15-minute bursts, you can build toward longer periods of focus and create a better foundation for productivity.
2. Being a perfectionist
It may be a cliché, but it’s true: Perfection is the enemy of the good. When you can’t accept imperfection, it will slow you down and inevitably lead to fewer tasks getting done. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t strive to do things well – but it is an important reminder that you have a limited amount of time and limited resources. More often than not, “good” is OK.
At its worst, perfectionism can completely hamper your productivity as it harms your mental health. Perfectionists can be paralyzed by indecision and anxiety, unable to complete anything for fear that it won’t be good enough.
Read more: Top 10 anxiety triggers you should know
What do you do instead: Like multitasking, perfectionism is based on an illusion. When you’re obsessed with it, you’re aiming for something you can never achieve. Instead, embrace a growth mindset. Ask yourself how you can get better and how you can do better, not how you can be perfect.
3. Forgetting to prioritize tasks
Distractions are relentless in today’s workplaces. Emails, social media, messengers, and myriad other channels compete for our attention, and it’s hard to tune out the noise and know where to focus first. This is why self-management and the ability to prioritize are among the top skills sought after by employers today.
This is no less true outside of work. When you give in to every impulse to respond to a ding from your phone or default to easy tasks all the time, you can check a lot of boxes without getting much of anything done. As research shows, people often succumb to the tyranny of the impulsive at the expense of more important tasks. And just like with multitasking, it can lead to a constant cycle of anxiety, along with depression where you feel like you’re not doing anything worthwhile.
Read more: How to have a better work-life balance
What do you do instead: Effective prioritization requires a proactive mindset. Instead of responding to everything in your inbox, review your priorities each week and each day. Make a plan for what’s most important and set a distraction-free time in your schedule to get it done — no matter what tasks seem urgent.
4. Being self-critical
This habit is closely related to perfectionism, which we discussed above. Here, you allow your negative inner voice too much space to speak its mind.
When you constantly criticize yourself, it leads to all kinds of cognitive distortions. The more you hear things like, “You’re not good at this” or “If you were smarter, you’d be better at this,” the more you believe it. And the more you believe it, the more it becomes a reality – you won’t get much done when you think you can’t do it. After all, research shows that negative comments rarely lead to better results.
On the contrary, other research shows that people with higher self-esteem tend to have better results in the long run—at work, relationships, and mental health. In other words, having a positive view of yourself is more productive.
Read more: How to overcome Impostor Syndrome
What do you do instead: Self-compassion is the opposite of self-criticism. Instead of just listening to your hypothetical inner criticism, start talking to yourself. Take a positive and encouraging approach. When you fall short, look for the things you did well and think about how you can reward those efforts and create positive motivation to improve.
5. It has no limits
Are you someone who says yes to everything? When you fail to set boundaries, it’s worse than forgetting to prioritize your tasks – it allows others to set your priorities for you.
This can happen in countless ways. At work, you probably have an open-door policy, allowing co-workers to interrupt you at any time, no matter what you’re working on. In your personal life, it could mean that you always get a call from that friend who’s a drain on your energy or you never hesitate to add another activity to your kids’ lists.
Whatever it is for you, it ultimately backfires. As we discovered above, the more you have on your list—and the more urgent you see all of these things—the less accomplished you will actually be. Without limits, others will always give you more to do.
What do you do instead: If you are not used to setting boundaries, this may take some practice. Of course, it all starts with prioritizing, so be sure to take a step back to determine what’s most important. From there, try some simple restrictions — maybe a closed door for an hour at work or not responding to that annoying friend’s text right away. When you get used to these limits, you can gradually add more.
6. Scrolling through social media
Perhaps nothing has caused more distractions than social media lately. The endless instant feedback loop on social media is addictive — it actually causes your brain to release dopamine — so it’s an easy distraction when you’d rather not focus on the task at hand. Before you know it, you’ve been scrolling for 20 minutes, and now you have to refocus on what you were doing.
You might think these short social media trips are harmless, but research suggests otherwise. Along with many other mental health concerns, social media gets in the way of productivity. One study, in particular, showed that addictive social media behaviors can harm work-life balance and job performance.
It’s worth noting that social media has its place, even at work. When used in moderation and with appropriate limits, it can improve working relationships and can even be a tool for productivity. But this requires a disciplined approach.
What do you do instead: Social media is so attractive because it is always on and always urgent. There is always something new to see or react to. Instead of letting it dictate your time, put social media in its place. Set times at work and home when you check in, and consider turning off push notifications for social media apps on your phone. This way, you can deal with it on more productive terms.
Read more: 5 reasons why you should disconnect from social media
7. Eating the wrong meals
Like social media, junk food is another distraction that will provide you with easy success. That carb-packed candy bar or bag of chips gives you a quick energy spike, but is followed by an intense crash as your body tries to rebalance your blood sugar. Many people ride these waves daily, trying to be productive in those short bursts of energy.
However, these fluctuations and congestion are not really helpful for increasing your productivity. You’ll spend more time crashing than riding high, and excess junk food can lead to mood swings and other health problems. In the long run, this will not help you maintain a productive lifestyle.
What do you do instead: Eating a well-balanced diet will increase your level of productivity more than junk foods. A healthy mix of protein, healthy fats, fiber and complex carbohydrates gives your body and mind a more steady source of energy so you don’t experience as many swings.
Read more: 8 foods that make you happy, according to science
Very long; Didn’t you read?
If you are looking for ways to increase your productivity, Start with your mind. More than anything, being productive is about how you think about yourself and your responsibilities, not finding the perfect system for getting things done. When you start with your mental health, a productive lifestyle naturally flows from there.