Contents
How often have you woken up with the thought that today is going to be extremely productive? Did you go to work, making a list of things in your mind, and in the evening left the office feeling nothing but disappointment from another mediocre day spent? How to learn to work more productively?
Yes, often we are hindered by some reasons and factors beyond our control – a protracted meeting, a sick colleague. But in most cases, we interfere with ourselves. We want to be creative, focused on work and as productive as possible. But this can be hindered by bad habits that have firmly entered our lives. Wendy Wood, Professor of Psychology and Chancellor of the University of Southern California, an expert at British Psychologies, and her colleagues will talk about some of them.
Pass the tests
- What job will bring you more pleasure?
1. You keep goodies on the table.
How many times have you opened a package of cookies for a light snack, and half an hour later secretly threw the empty wrapper in the trash, tormented by a sense of shame? The psychologists at the Catalyst Behavioral Sciences have a solution. In 2011, they conducted a study in which they asked a group of young people in a movie theater to eat popcorn with their non-working hand. After the end of the film, it turned out that they ate significantly less than their usual portion. That is, they were led not by habit, but by the feeling of hunger. So the trick is pretty simple – put the candy or crackers on the far left side of the table if you’re right-handed, and vice versa.
Read more:
- Six steps to become more productive
This habit has a lot in common with the habit of snacking at your desk. Psychotherapist Hope Bastine argues that both of these vices are from boredom and social isolation. “Women deal with stress through communication and support,” Bastin explains. When we talk with friends, share experiences and sympathize, our body produces the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin. So sitting at work on Facebook is a natural response to stress, a kind of defense mechanism that provides us with social support.” Plus, talking in the office kitchen and at the water cooler helps us deal with stress at work. “We are always looking for support and want to be appreciated,” continues Hope Bastin. “Therefore, we need support from a colleague or friend. As well as “likes” in social networks. Realizing the need for such support, Bastin does not recommend abandoning office conversations or social networks completely. But he advises to approach this consciously. For example, allocate yourself 15 minutes a day for communication and an Instagram feed. At the end, be sure to take a few seconds to switch to work. And until the evening no longer touch the phone.
Read more:
- How to stop being dissatisfied with your job
3. You let your emotions drive your work.
Yes, work and personal life should have boundaries. But sometimes it’s incredibly hard not to bring some serious experiences into the office. “When we get angry over deadlines or home problems and yell at co-workers, there is a danger of becoming a hostage to a bad habit. So we will always lose our temper in order to compensate for what we currently lack. Whether it’s power, security or status,” says Nick Seneca Yankel, author of Switch On. To get rid of this, try immediately after losing your temper, visualize the situation in which you behaved calmly and correctly. This will help you start moving in a more positive direction. According to research at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, USA, during visualization, we can trick the brain that this is really happening to us. Therefore, if the brain remembers the positive emotions that we experienced during visualization, it will help us not to break into a scream the next time.
Read more:
- Idleness is bad for mental health
4. You don’t exercise every day.
“To break a bad habit, you must first be honest with yourself and admit that this problem exists,” says psychotherapist Joan Kingsley (Joan Kingsley). Therefore, if you want to start playing sports every day, then you should frankly admit to yourself, what prevented us from being athletic all this time? Kingsley herself admits that although she knew about all the beneficial properties of sports, she simply did not have enough motivation to run in the morning or go to fitness. To form a healthy exercise habit, Joan hired a personal trainer. “I understand that without constant supervision and motivation from a fitness trainer, I will be lazy and skip classes,” says Kingsley. The therapist advises to start small. For example, arrange with colleagues that during your lunch break you will go for a half-hour walk. Or after work, sign up for a group workout at a nearby fitness club. This way you can support and motivate each other. Plus, over time, you will notice that the more regularly you practice, the better you cope with the most difficult tasks at work.
And scientists from Stanford University argue that the most effective way to acquire a new healthy habit is to start by introducing micro-habits into our lifestyle. Take the stairs instead of taking the elevator, walk instead of one stop on the subway, start running not for an hour, but for ten minutes. Over time, we will stop imagining our day without physical activity, and we will go to sports with pleasure.
Read more:
- “I want to go home early”
5. You are always late
Management consultant Diana DeLonzor, who studies the phenomenon of being late, says that in order to get rid of this bad habit, you must first understand the reason why you are always late. If at the last minute you take on some new business, guided by the principle “there is still time, I will have time,” then Delonzor advises starting a diary. In it, you will record not only a list of what needs to be done, but also the time it took to complete each task. This will help you to be more realistic about your schedule and not try to do in 15 minutes what would normally take you at least 30. It can also save you from making promises that you are not able to keep on time. And reward yourself for your efforts. Arriving early for a meeting, buy your favorite coffee and flip through the news feed or your favorite magazine. For example, Psychology.
But the writer Gretchen Rubin (Gretchen Rubin) believes that unhappy employees are subject to chronic lateness. “If a person is dissatisfied with his job, then he will subconsciously try to spend as little time on it as possible,” says Rubin. “But their happy and satisfied colleagues are not only late less often, but also complete their tasks faster.”
Therefore, if you are always late for work, and also unproductive – think about it, maybe it just doesn’t suit you? Try to wake up and start writing down all your thoughts about today. And then reread what you wrote. You can make very interesting discoveries.