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#CareerAdvice : #ProductivePeople – 11 CEOs share the Bad Habits they Want to Ditch in 2019. Great Read!

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While you’re busy making lofty resolutions for 2019, it’s important to also think about the things you don’t want to do in the new year. Whether you’re spending too much time fielding emails or reading the news, chances are you could be more productive—or simply happier—by making a few tweaks in and out of the office. We asked a number of CEOs about the habits they hope to kick in 2019.

MULTITASKING IN AND OUT OF THE OFFICE

It’s no secret that your productivity suffers when you multitask—a habit multiple CEOs said they want to cut back on. Hussein Fazal, the CEO of travel startup SnapTravel, notes that people often spend “downtime” checking work emails and messages—and then spend their “work time” looking at personal emails and messages. (Perhaps this sounds familiar?) “It is super important to compartmentalize these time blocks,” he says, “to ensure maximum productivity while working and to minimize work distractions while enjoying downtime.” To that end, Fazal has turned off nearly all notifications on his phone and frequently keeps his phone on “do not disturb” mode.

But even when you don’t let personal agendas interrupt your workday, it can be difficult to truly focus on one task (and one tab!) at a time. That’s why Heidi Zak, CEO of lingerie startup ThirdLove, no longer brings her laptop to meetings. “I’ve found I’m much more engaged and present,” she says. Cheryl Kaplan, cofounder of shoe startup M.Gemi, says that because she often finds herself multitasking, in 2019 she wants to “focus on being present,” whether it’s at work or at home. “Face time is precious, but sometimes it gets difficult to focus on what or who is in front of me,” she says. “My goal is to put all my attention on the conversation or task at hand, instead of trying to give partial attention to a few different things at once.”

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TAKING YOUR PHONE INTO THE BEDROOM

If you’re dreaming of more peaceful sleep in the new year, you’re on the right track. “Stop trying to be a ‘hustler’ who works 24/7 and never sleeps,” advises Peter Shankman, the CEO of The Geek Factory and an author who has written and spoken extensively about living with ADHD. “Take care of yourself first and foremost. You can’t make a million dollars if you’re dead.” Founders like Tara Foley, the founder of beauty startup Follain, plan to make sleeping well a priority in 2019—even if it means not finishing work. “I get a more restful sleep if I get in bed earlier, and I get more done with my day if I’ve gotten enough sleep,” she says. Alana Branston, CEO of the retail startup Bulletin, intends to start going to bed before midnight.

For some CEOs, sleeping more soundly means unplugging. “I am working on creating a phone-free bedroom environment,” says investor Anu Duggal, who started Female Founders Fund. And Ariel Kaye, the CEO of bedding startup Parachute, is already on her way to a bedroom devoid of screens. “This is extremely challenging for me,” Kaye says. “I’ve started using an alarm clock and charge my phone outside of the bedroom. I’m already seeing the benefits—not only do I sleep much more soundly without the blue light from my phone, but I’m now in the habit of reading at night.”

Plus, the better you sleep, the less likely you are to hit the snooze button—a bad habit that Shankman cautions against. “Getting up a half hour earlier will radically improve your life in countless ways,” he says.

STRETCHING YOURSELF TOO THIN

One way to address both multitasking and sleepless nights is to take on less and say no more, as Eunice Byun—the founder of cookware startup Material—hopes to do in 2019. “As an entrepreneur with an under-one-year-old business, I catch myself feeling like we need to be ready to seize every opportunity,” she says. Over time, she has realized that when she is “more purposeful and intentional” about where she spends her energy, it is easier to stay true to her company mission. “It’s fun and exhilarating to be in hyper-growth mode, but saying ‘no’ can be just as important to growing long-term,” she adds.

As a founder, doing less also means delegating effectively—something that can be difficult if you have built a company from the ground up. “The single worst habit I have—that I continue to work on—is micromanagement,” says Zahir Dossa, CEO of beauty startup Function of Beauty. “It isn’t easy to detach from the day-to-day tasks that I was once used to occupying. The most important thing that leads me to let go of things, however, is trust in the people [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][who] now lead these initiatives.”

NOT COUNTING YOUR WINS

Vivian Shen, founder of coding startup Juni Learning, says that in 2019, she wants to focus on creating good habits. One of those is making time to take stock of positive developments. “Given all the negative news throughout the past year, I believe it is more important than ever to practice gratitude,” she says. “We so often focus on what went wrong or what we could have done better. We don’t intentionally take the time to reflect on and truly celebrate the wins at work or in our personal lives. As a CEO, I feel that consistently showing appreciation for our team’s accomplishments needs to be core to our company’s DNA if we’re going to build a successful, long-term company.”

Pavithra Mohan is an assistant editor for Fast Company Digital. Her writing has previously been featured in Gizmodo and Popular Science magazine.

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FastCompany.com | December 26, 2018

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#Leadership : The Secrets of the Most #ProductivePeople -How to be Busy without Feeling Overwhelmed…“Busy” Doesn’t really Mean “Productive”; Here’s How to Switch your Focus to What Really Matters.

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At most moments in the day, we’re busy doing something; however, there’s a big difference between being busy and productive and just being busy. It’s easy to fall into the latter category when days are filled with never-ending tasks. Lately, though, admitting that you’re “busy” has gotten a bad rap.

When you find yourself feeling busy, slow down and take stock to see if those things you’re working on are things you should be tackling at all or at that moment,”

“The term ‘busy’ became a badge of honor,” says Mike Vardy, founder of the Productivityist website. “Being busy shows you’re important; you’ve got things going on. Having that status symbol is one of the reasons why people held onto it.”

But “busy” doesn’t really mean “productive,” and it can often lead to a feeling of overwhelm. Henry David Thoreau once said, “It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”

“Once you start to look at that, the term ‘busy’ loses some of its luster,” says Vardy. “Throwing around the word ‘busy,’ is like using the F word; it’s only powerful in specific situations.”

Related: Why You Need to Stop Bragging About How Busy You Are

 

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THE PROBLEM WITH “BUSY”

The word “busy” is defined as being “engaged in action.” The bad kind of busy is taking action without being engaged in it and doing so repeatedly, says Vardy.

“It’s spending time getting your email inbox to zero without being engaged with everything that lands there first,” he says. “It’s surfing the web without a clear objective in mind before opening the browser. It’s decluttering your space–physical and/or digital–without putting a plan in place first.

“The right kind of busy depends on intention before attention. The wrong kind of busy attracts attention before intention.”

Busy can also be isolating. Inevitably someone will ask you what you’re doing or how you’ve been, and if your reflex answer is “busy” it can be dismissive and shut down conversations. “The person often responds with, ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to bug you,’ and backs away,” says Vardy.

Saying you’re “crazy busy” is even worse. “Not only am I busy, I’m frantically busy,” says Vardy. “I don’t think it’s meant to be a conversation stopper. It’s meant to say, ‘This is how important I am. I have this stuff.’ We all have stuff. We’re all busy.”

HOW TO MAKE “BUSY” GOOD

Busy can be good, but you first need to answer Thoreau’s question–busy doing what?

“If you’re engaged in action, are those actions moving you forward in a way that’s truly productive?” asks Vardy. “Checking email, for example, is not a definition of being productive. What you’re doing should be an act of will.”

To get some clarity on whether you’re engaged in productive action or engaged in busywork, reframe your words. In her book 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, author Laura Vanderkam writes, “Instead of saying, ‘I don’t have time,’ say, ‘It’s not a priority,’ and see how that feels.” Changing the sentence helps you be objective and determine if you’re spending time on the right things.

Similarly, saying “I’m busy” is like saying, “I don’t have time for this.” Instead, Vardy suggests reframing the phrase to “My attention right now is on …” or “I’m busy doing these things.”

“That gives you a lot more to go with,” he says. “For example, ‘I’m busy working on my book,’ or ‘I’m focusing on building my online platform.’ Having a better phrase allows you to take that word back and make ‘busy’ matter.”

Related: Asking this one question can make you feel like you have more time

When you tell others what you’re giving your attention to, you create more of a conversation with someone who is asking for your time. “You can add, ‘I can’t talk to you right now because I’m focusing on this,’ but simply saying you’re busy has lost its power because it doesn’t have any meat behind it,” says Vardy.

Productivity is about slowing down to figure out if you’re doing the right things in first place, says Vardy. “When you find yourself feeling busy, slow down and take stock to see if those things you’re working on are things you should be tackling at all or at that moment,” he says.

 

FastCompany.com | August 14, 2018 | BY STEPHANIE VOZZA 3 MINUTE READ

 

#Leadership : Secrets of the Most #ProductivePeople -The Best Way to Use All those 5 Minutes of #Downtime Every Day…When you Have a Few Spare Minutes During the Day, you Probably Default to Checking Email. Here are More #ProductiveWays to use “Found Time.”

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Whether your meeting ended early or that project didn’t take as long as you thought, chances are you’ve got some found time on your hands at some point during the day. If you’re like most people, you default to checking email. If you had a system in place, however, you could use those unexpected minutes to get something done, says productivity consultant Leslie Shreve, founder and CEO of Productive Day.

“Most people don’t know how to jump in and take advantage of time because nothing is prepared and sitting in front of them,” she says. “The key is to proactively plan for those five-, 10-, or 15-minute bits of time that often appear throughout the average workday.”

And there are a lot of them. A study by the staffing firm OfficeTeam found that the average employee squanders 56 minutes every day, which adds up to nearly five hours a week that could be used on meaningful work.

START WITH AN INVENTORY

We’re not being proactive with our time because we’re managing tasks from paper to-do lists, emails, voicemails, conversations, notes, files, and ideas. “Those are tools; not systems,” says Shreve.

What’s necessary is a master list, or inventory, of all of your tasks. Shreve likens it to creating a mission control. Bigger than a brain dump, she suggests going around your desk and recording all of your tasks and projects. Look at files and papers on your desk: Things that are left out are often done so as reminders of what needs to be done, she says. As you note action items, you build your task inventory.

“You have to take time in your busy day to do this, but it can help you save a lot of time in the end,” says Shreve. “To make progress on meaningful work you need small action steps. You cannot get progress without project management. Unless you’re prepared, things will be lost or forgotten.”

Tasks should be small, Shreve says, only reflecting the first action step to get something started, or the next action step to keep something moving forward. “These small but powerful steps can move multi-step tasks, projects, and initiatives forward consistently and with ease,” she says.

Use a digital system, such as a spreadsheet, to record your full inventory of tasks—everything you need to do, no matter the source of the task or when action will take place. A paper to-do list needs to be completed, while a digital list is a system, says Shreve. With all your tasks in one system, you can plan and prioritize for certain days, weeks, and months into the future.

When you have found time, check your inventory and find a task that fits. For example, five minutes is enough time to make a phone call that you know will go to voicemail, schedule an appointment, or knock out a quick action step that will keep a priority or a project moving forward.

“Having an inventory of all tasks in one system allows you to make smart decisions about how to use your time, because all tasks are documented and ready for action,” says Shreve. “You can easily become more proactive and less reactive throughout the day.”

PLAN YOUR DAY

An inventory of tasks also helps you plan your day. When you get to work in the morning, check your task list and get to work. Looking at your inventory, priorities often bubble to the top, and Shreve suggests choosing four to seven items to do that day.

“You can always change it, and make it reflect what you really want or need to do that day,” says Shreve. “Your day and task list is never static.”

Working without a system is like grocery shopping; it’s easy to miss items because there’s often no order to the layout of the store, says Shreve. “You only buy the items you can find or that are in front of you,” she says. “Similarly, you can only do the tasks that you know about or see in your vision, and if you don’t have time to check 10 different places for the possibilities, something will be missed.”

MINUTES DRIVE RESULTS

While they seem inconsequential in the moment, those small amounts of time are essential for achieving results. “Inner work life matters for companies because, no matter how brilliant a company’s strategy might be, the strategy’s execution depends on great performance by people inside the organization,” write Harvard Business School professor Theresa Amabile and development psychologist Steven Kramer in their book The Progress Principle. “When progress happens in small steps, a person’s sense of steady forward movement toward an important goal can make all the difference between a great day and a terrible one.”

Knowing what’s possible allows you to take action on the most important tasks at the right times throughout the day, says Shreve. “You can use your time more wisely and with purpose,” she says. “You stop guessing and start knowing what to do and when to do it. It’s a priceless benefit from having a complete system and a workday strategy that works.”

 

FastCompany.com | May 29, 2018 | BY STEPHANIE VOZZA 4 MINUTE READ

#Leadership : #WorkSmart – 5 Ways To Reset An #Unproductive Afternoon…One or Two Hours of Lost #Productivity Shouldn’t Ruin your Whole Workday. Here are Some Ideas to Reset your Brain & Start Fresh.

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We live in a world surrounded by distractions. If you work in an open office, chances are, you have to fight them on a daily basis–whether it’s your coworker who talks loudly on the phone, or that little notification box at the bottom of your screen. Sometimes you’ve just had a rough morning, and doing anything productive feels like moving a mountain.

But just because you had an unproductive stint during your workday doesn’t mean that your entire afternoon is doomed. Take a deep breath and try one of these methods to get you back to work mode in no time.

1. DO SOMETHING TO DISCONNECT

If your work allows for flexible hours, one of the best things you can do is leave the office and do some sort of activity to recharge. Elizabeth Grace Saunders, in a previous article for Fast Company, recommends getting some exercise or running an errand so “you still have some personal time to recharge and get back to your desk refreshed and focused.” If it’s toward the end of the day (and you don’t have any after-work obligations), you might even want to come back when everyone is starting to leave, so that you can get your work done with minimal interruptions.

Related:Here’s How A Month Of Exercise Affected My Brain 

2. OUTSOURCE YOUR WORRIES

Sometimes, you’re distracted by your own thoughts, and no amount of decluttering can help your concentration. This feeling is even more crippling if you’re already feeling lonely, Lisa Evans previously wrote for Fast Company. An effective remedy is sharing your worries with someone. You can confide in a coworker you trust, or step outside to call a friend or family member. Edward Hallowell, a leading expert on attention-deficit disorder and author of Driven To Distraction At Work: How To Focus And Be More Productive, told Evans, “The minute you talk to someone, your feeling of vulnerability goes down.”

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3. THINK ABOUT THE BIGGER PICTURE

It’s easy to get bogged down in little to-dos when you have a long to-do list, but if lack of motivation is the reason why you’re distracted, you might want to turn your mind to your “role” priorities over your “task” priorities, Jane Porter previously wrote for Fast Company. This means thinking about whether the items on your to-do list move you forward in your role, or whether they’re merely admin time sucks like emails that probably bring out very little value (and don’t yield much results). When you can identify how your immediate tasks contribute to a much bigger goal, you’re more likely to want to make progress, which increases your motivation level, Porter wrote.

4. “OBSERVE” YOUR MIND WONDERING

Sometimes fighting distraction is a lost cause, and the best way to get your focus back is to let it happen and move on. When your lack of focus is due to lack of inspiration, this can be especially helpful. Shelley H. Carson, author of Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps To Maximize Imagination, Productivity And Innovation In Your Life, previously told Stephanie Vozza that being open to distraction “allows for the ability to take bits of information and combine them in novel ways that are useful or adaptive.” However, to reap the benefits, Carson said that we have to “look at them in a non-judgmental way.” Instead of beating yourself up about not being able to focus, embrace your busy thoughts and see what creative solutions it might bring.

5. DO SOMETHING ELSE FOR A LITTLE BIT

Multitasking gets a terrible rep, but sometimes it can be a great tool when monotasking is just not getting you anywhere. As Saunders previously wrote for Fast Company, “Some situations just aren’t meant for long stretches of unbroken focus.” The trick is to experiment what form of task switching helps you best. For Saunders, task switching motivates her to work through small and boring tasks. She gives herself permission to toggle between writing business emails and looking at her calendar tasks, or she’d alternate these administrative tasks with more “exciting” work (such as book marketing). Saunders wrote, “The promise of soon being able to do something fun helps me quit procrastinating on what’s not fun.”

 

 

FastCompany.com | March 30, 2018 | BY ANISA PURBASARI HORTON 3 MINUTE READ

#Leadership : Why you Should Never Work Longer than 90 Minutes at a Time…By Working in 90-Minute Intervals (or Less) you Could Maximize your Productivity. Here’s What you Need to Know.

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There’s so much emphasis on increasing productivity these days. Some companies are even doing things like doing away with meetings altogether to try to increase it. Workers are being mindful of productivity, too. Given the pace and expectations of modern life, we’d all like to understand how to best maximize our time and energy. It turns out, there may be a simple solution.

Clockwork

By working in 90-minute intervals (or less) you could maximize your productivity. Here’s what you need to know.

1. Strategic renewal works

Sometimes it seems like rushing around from place to place, or from one task to the next, is the only option we have for getting everything done. Our days are packed, so trying to find a chance to slow down a little feels almost impossible. But, taking time to relax could actually save you time in the long run. According to a piece in The New York Times, “strategic renewal,” which includes everything from daytime naps or workouts to longer and more frequent vacations, has been shown to increase productivity in the long run. So, while it might seem like there isn’t enough time to take a break, it’s actually one of the keys to getting a lot done.

 

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2. The basic-rest-activity-cycle (BRAC) impacts our waking and sleeping lives

We’ve known for more than 50 years that we sleep in 90-minute cycles. (If you have a sleep tracker, likely as a feature of an activity band, you might have noticed this yourself.) We move from light sleep, to deep sleep (and restorative REM state) in roughly 90-minute waves. About a decade after we learned about this natural sleep cycle, researchers began to realize that we follow a similar pattern in our waking lives as well.

3. To maximize productivity, work in 90-minute intervals

In response to this information, and in an effort to better understand productivity, Florida State University Professor K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues studied “elite performers,” folks who excelled in their field, whether they were musicians, athletes, or chess players. Ericsson discovered that uninterrupted practice in intervals of 90 minutes or less, with breaks in between sessions, worked best for maximizing productivity. Also, he noted that these folks rarely worked more than four-and-a-half hours in a given day.

“To maximize gains from long-term practice,” Ericsson concluded, “individuals must avoid exhaustion and must limit practice to an amount from which they can completely recover on a daily or weekly basis.”

By focusing on limiting our fatigue to a level that we can completely recover from in a timely way, we can help to maximize our time and our productive efforts. Perhaps thinking of work or projects in terms of how they can be blocked into 90-minute chunks could be a good place to start. Who knows, maybe with practice we could even build to keeping our active workdays under that four-and-a-half-hour maximum Ericsson recommended, too.

Find out how your salary stacks up on PayScale.

Read the original article on PayScale. Copyright 2016. Follow PayScale on Twitter.

Businessinsider.com | November 11, 2016 |  Gina Belli, PayScale

#Leadership : How You Justify Sticking With Bad Work Habits (And How To Stop)…The more Effort People Put into Something, the More they’ll Tend to Believe in It—Even If that Effort is Misplaced.

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You don’t always work as efficiently or productively as you could, and you know it. Chances are you can even identify which ways of doing things you could probably do better if you were to do them differently—but you don’t want to. That’s just the way you do it.
Free- Lens Close Up

You don’t always work as efficiently or productively as you could, and you know it. Chances are you can even identify which ways of doing things you could probably do better if you were to do them differently—but you don’t want to. That’s just the way you do it.

It’s normal to have some habits or practices you prefer and others you don’t, and some managers have found that giving employees control over the “how” as long as they accomplish the “what” is a powerful productivity strategy in its own right. But sometimes we fall into routines at work that not only do weknow to be less than ideal, but we also find ways to convince ourselves they’re worth sticking to anyway. That can be a problem.

HOW YOU COME UP WITH REASONS FOR BAD HABITS

In the 1950s, the psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term “cognitive dissonance” to describe the uneasiness we feel when we hold two conflicting ideas simultaneously. Festinger realized that this discomfort isn’t just an inert feeling—it influences our behavior in surprising ways.

Cognitive dissonance is so unpleasant that it motivates us to make changes in order to avoid experiencing it. But since we don’t always recognize why we’re uncomfortable (the source of our cognitive dissonance), we can often wind up making the wrong changes—or holding onto habits we should probably abandon.

I once worked with an organization that sent out sensitive documents. Because of the nature of the work, when mail was returned, it couldn’t just be thrown away and the recipient removed from the mailing list. We had to make every effort to contact the person.

 

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The procedure to do this was created before email and social media were widespread. So those tools—even after they came on the scene—still played little part in our process for contacting recipients. Our staff found themselves using a process they knew was unwieldy and old-fashioned, and that created cognitive dissonance. They valued the efficiency of shooting off a quick email over mailing physical documents, and taking that analog approach anyway (in other words, behaving contrary to a belief) subconsciously caused distress.

For a long time, they weren’t able to change the process. So to avoid cognitive dissonance, employees came up with ways to make sense of what they were doing. By the time they were given the freedom to change course, they’d convinced themselves they had a legal obligation (which they didn’t) to act in the way that they did. Dislodging this idea became a stumbling block to improvement for the business.

Cognitive dissonance can motivate people to change the way they work. But if they aren’t aware of what’s going on, it can instead lead to irrational behavior and the invention of justifications for things that should be changed. If it’s consciously recognized, though, these inconsistencies can motivate change for the better.

You can never entirely avoid cognitive dissonance—it’s part of how we think. But you can reduce it. Here are a few steps to take to do that.

1. WALK THE WALK

People are pretty good hypocrisy detectors. Any inconsistency between your company’s stated values and its behaviors will create dissonance for employees who are asked to follow procedures that conflict with the values they’re told to uphold. So if you’re going to say you value creativity, then let people be creative; if you say you value diversity, then be diverse; if you say you value quality over speed, then don’t rush people. This isn’t rocket science, but the gap between values and action is the first thing to look for.

Same goes for your brand. Examine the relationship between your organization’s public image and the reality of your work. Don’t pretend to the world that you’re a fun-loving company if your ethos is really about serious work, or that you value customer feedback if you’re already set on a specific course. Make sure image matches reality, and no one will waste mental energy straining to match the unmatchable.

2. MAKE AN EFFORT IN THE RIGHT AREA

The more effort people put into something, the more they’ll tend to believe in it. So make sure that your employees are focused, as far as possible, on core tasks and values that express the purpose of your business. This way their work and the supposed purpose of it will correspond, and that work will make them comfortably more committed to those values. A great deal of misplaced effort usually leads to a great deal of justifications for sticking with it.

3. RESEARCH, DON’T EXPLAIN IT AWAY

Anytime someone asks why you do something, there’s a risk that you’ll give a knee-jerk response, looking for the most obvious way to make sense of what you do already—instead of really thinking about why you do it. The worst part is, you won’t even realize you may be inventing after-the-fact justifications for a less-than-ideal process.

So don’t give the first answer that comes into your head. Press pause, step away, check the facts, and then come back with the real explanation. If that explanation—the truthful one, backed by research—isn’t so hot, then maybe it’s time to change.

4. ACCEPT A LITTLE INCONSISTENCY

Avoiding cognitive dissonance is all about creating consistency, but that doesn’t mean that you should go into denial about what’s inconsistent. Circumstances change, and so do businesses. Sometimes inconsistencies will develop, and we can get defensive about them—explaining them away instead of fixing them. So be on the lookout for those inconsistencies, but keep in mind that they’re normal and, in many cases, fixable.

It’s a good goal to try and work as rationally as possible. But we don’t always think that way, and recognizing that is the first step toward scrapping your worse habits and hanging onto your better ones.

 

FastCompany.com | MARK LUKENS  | 09.15.16 5:00 AM

#Leadership : 9 Bad Habits You Must Break To Be More Productive…Bad Habits Slow you Down, Decrease your Accuracy, Make you Less Creative & Stifle your Performance. Getting Control of your Bad Habits is Critical, & not Just for Productivity’s Sake.

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Nothing sabotages your productivity quite like bad habits. They are insidious, creeping up on you slowly until you don’t even notice the damage they’re causing.

Clockwork

Bad habits slow you down, decrease your accuracy, make you less creative and stifle your performance. Getting control of your bad habits is critical, and not just for productivity’s sake. A University of Minnesota study found that people who exercise a high degree of self-control tend to be much happier than those who don’t, both in the moment and in the long run.

“By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character.” — Grenville Kleiser

Some bad habits cause more trouble than others, and the nine that follow are the worst offenders. Shedding these habits will increase your productivity and allow you to enjoy the positive mood that comes with increased self-control.

Related: 10 Things You Do That Make You Less Likeable

1. Impulsively surfing the internet. It takes you 15 consecutive minutes of focus before you can fully engage in a task. Once you do, you fall into a euphoric state of increased productivity called flow. Research shows that people in a flow state are five times more productive than they otherwise would be. When you click out of your work because you get an itch to check the news, Facebook, a sport’s score, or what have you, this pulls you out of flow. This means you have to go through another 15 minutes of continuous focus to reenter the flow state. Click in and out of your work enough times, and you can go through an entire day without experiencing flow.

 

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2. Perfectionism. Most writers spend countless hours brainstorming characters and plot, and they even write page after page that they know they’ll never include in the book. They do this because they know that ideas need time to develop. We tend to freeze up when it’s time to get started because we know that our ideas aren’t perfect and what we produce might not be any good. But how can you ever produce something great if you don’t get started and give your ideas time to evolve? Author Jodi Picoult summarized the importance of avoiding perfectionism perfectly: “You can edit a bad page, but you can’t edit a blank page.”

3. Meetings. Meetings gobble up your precious time like no other. Ultra-productive people avoid meetings as much as humanly possible. They know that a meeting will drag on forever if they let it, so when they must have a meeting they inform everyone at the onset that they’ll stick to the intended schedule. This sets a clear limit that motivates everyone to be more focused and efficient.

Related: 8 Habits of Incredibly Interesting People

4. Responding to e-mails as they arrive. Productive people don’t allow their e-mail to be a constant interruption. In addition to checking their e-mail on a schedule, they take advantage of features that prioritize messages by sender. They set alerts for their most important vendors and their best customers, and they save the rest until they reach a stopping point in their work. Some people even set up an autoresponder that lets senders know when they’ll be checking their e-mail again.

5. Hitting the snooze button. When you sleep, your brain moves through an elaborate series of cycles, the last of which prepares you to be alert at your wake up time. This is why you’ll sometimes wake up right before your alarm clock goes off — your brain knows it’s time to wake up and it’s ready to do so. When you hit the snooze button and fall back asleep, you lose this alertness and wake up later, tired and groggy. Worst of all, this grogginess can take hours to wear off. So no matter how tired you think you are when your alarm clock goes off, force yourself out of bed if you want to have a productive morning.

6. Multitasking. Multitasking is a real productivity killer. Research conducted at Stanford University confirms that multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time. The researchers found that people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information cannot pay attention, recall information or switch from one job to another as well as those who complete one task at a time. When you try to do two things at once, your brain lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully.

But what if some people have a special gift for multitasking? The Stanford researchers compared groups of people, based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps their performance. They found that heavy multitaskers — those who multitasked a lot and felt that it boosted their performance — were actually worse at multitasking than those who liked to do a single thing at a time. The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another. Ouch!

7. Putting off tough tasks. We have a limited amount of mental energy, and as we exhaust this energy, our decision-making and productivity decline rapidly. This is called decision fatigue. When you put off tough tasks till late in the day because they’re intimidating, you save them for when you’re at your worst. To beat decision fatigue, you must tackle complex tasks in the morning when your mind is fresh.

Related: 14 Things Ridiculously Successful People Do Every Day

8. Using your phone, tablet or computer in bed. This is a big one that most people don’t even realize harms their sleep and productivity. Short-wavelength blue light plays an important role in your mood, energy level and sleep quality. In the morning, sunlight contains high concentrations of this blue light. When your eyes are exposed to it directly, the blue light halts production of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and makes you feel more alert. In the afternoon, the sun’s rays lose their blue light, which allows your body to produce melatonin and start making you sleepy.

By the evening, your brain doesn’t expect any blue light exposure and is very sensitive to it. Most of our favorite evening devices — laptops, tablets, televisions, and mobile phones — emit short-wavelength blue light, and in the case of your laptop, tablet and phone, they do so brightly and right in your face. This exposure impairs melatonin production and interferes with your ability to fall asleep as well as with the quality of your sleep once you do nod off. As we’ve all experienced, a poor night’s sleep has disastrous effects upon productivity. The best thing you can do is to avoid these devices after dinner (television is OK for most people as long as they sit far enough away from the set).

9. Eating too much sugar. Glucose functions as the “gas pedal” for energy in the brain. You need glucose to concentrate on challenging tasks. With too little glucose, you feel tired, unfocused and slow; too much glucose leaves you jittery and unable to concentrate. Research has shown that the sweet spot is about 25 grams of glucose. The tricky thing is that you can get these 25 grams of glucose any way you want, and you’ll feel the same — at least initially. The difference lies in how long the productivity lasts. Donuts, soda and other forms of refined sugar lead to an energy boost that lasts a mere 20 minutes, while oatmeal, brown rice and other foods containing complex carbohydrates release their energy slowly, which enables you to sustain your focus.

Bringing It All Together

Some of these habits may seem minor, but they add up. Most amount to a personal choice between immediate pleasures and lasting ones. After all, the worst habit is losing track of what really matters to you.

A version of this article appeared on TalentSmart.

 

Entrepreneur.com  |  July 8, 2016  | Travis Bradberry

#Leadership : 12 Successful People Share their Best Productivity Hacks…Here, 12 Successful People Share How to Do just That, Compliments of their Productivity Hacks. Get Ready to Get Focused

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If you find yourself getting easily overwhelmed by emails, struggling to keep your eyes open at your desk, or constantly getting distracted by coworkers, chances are, your productivity level isn’t what it could be.

Free- Focus on Work

The secret to working more efficiently isn’t about working more or less, but smarter.

Here, 12 successful people share how to do just that, compliments of their productivity hacks. Get ready to get focused:

1. Visualize

“I always envision myself crushing it at my job, working with pristine integrity and keeping a gold standard. I have always envisioned myself being the go-to girl, the leader in my space, the golden girl in the Wellness space. Make an effort to pinpoint your success, and focus on YOU leading the pack. Clear the noise, don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. Focus on yourself, your work and keep the focus on doing your very best, nothing less.” — Candice Kumai, bestselling author of “Clean Green Eats” & “Clean Green Drinks“

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2. Simplify

“Break down an annual goal into daily activities. Then focus 100% of your energy on completing those activities.” — Kevin Conroy Smith, Levo 100 honoree and founder of the Number Project

3. Unplug

“I can’t begin to stress how important it was to limit digital distractions during my workday. The best thing I’ve ever done to improve my productivity was to check my inbox only three times a day. This allows me to really concentrate on whatever task I have at hand. Before I started doing this, I would constantly get interrupted and it would take me a while to get back to really focusing on what I was working on, which was a killer for my productivity. Sometimes I’ll catch myself cheating by checking my iPhone inbox, but putting it on silent helps stop the temptation!” — Jude Al-Khalil, founder and CEO of BIKYNI

4. Catch those ZZZs

“My #1 productivity hack is getting seven hours of sleep each night. I turn off the TV and put away all my devices so I can clear my brain and sleep well! To have an energy-full day, I prioritize getting a good night’s sleep so I wake up rested and ready to go face the day’s challenges. I also really appreciate the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute’s principles that lead to being your personal best at work and at home: be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aware to achieve your mission.”  — Janis Smith-Gomez, vice president, marketing for Ethicon, Inc.

5. Distance yourself

“Close the office door. I have an open door policy all the time. My office is open to every one of the 110 people who work for me. In fact, it’s unusual not to find at least one of my employees paying me a visit. However, when the rubber meets the road, and I have to concentrate and get something done quickly, my office door gets closed. It has become a sign to everyone that when it’s closed, I am full steam on a project so I generally don’t get interrupted. It’s amazing what you can accomplish in an uninterrupted hour — or even a half hour.” — Linda Lightman, CEO and founder of Linda’s Stuff

6. Plan, organize, do

“I have a three-step mantra when it comes to being productive:

Plan it. I plan each day the night before and add them as actual tasks in my calendar. This gives you the creative space to do the work you need to do in the time required and ensures that you are realistic about what can be achieved. I prioritize the most important tasks and always allow time for inspiration and play — being creative means you need time to be inspired, read an article, blog or just be on the pulse of what’s happening.

Organize it. I try to keep to Inbox Zero. I rule the mail, it does not rule me. I check it only three times — morning, afternoon, and at the end of the day. Being ruthless with emails means spending more time on the next step and less on organizing and sifting through endless emails. Honestly, if it’s really important, experience has taught me they either come and get you or pick up the phone.

Do it. I get focused. I’m not distracted, I don’t check my email, and I get in the zone to complete the tasks for the day. I often have post-it notes with each task on my desk and physically tick them off once a task is done. There is great satisfaction in actually completing something. Visually seeing these is also a great way to remain focused.” — Resh Sidhu, creative director of Framestore’s VR Studio

 

7. Check-in times

“Email is both a blessing and a curse — a curse in that it often becomes a seemingly endless task. Each day, I set a time to check my email and address as much as I can. But I always set an end time, and stick to it. Of course, email is a blessing in that it keeps me on track. And I sort my inbox by subject, to be as efficient as possible (though I try to keep this trick a secret!).” — Julie Lee, managing director, Maxus Chicago

8. Calendars and story time

“There are two actually… the one at work: my to-dos go right into my Outlook calendar, where I can’t hide from them or transfer them to another piece of paper; the reminders keep me honest and mindful, and the lack of scribbled, unreadable lists cluttering my desk is a nice plus one. The one at home: reading to my kids; it’s the blissful 30 to 45 minutes of my day that’s never shattered or shared with anyone else, and puts me in a right zen mood.” — Christine Stack, partner at Liberty Blue

9. Google Hangouts

“While this may seem counter-intuitive as a productivity hack, I’m in a creative business so talking through ideas needs the nuance of conversation and ideally seeing each other’s face. Hangouts helps our teams get together and have meaningful discussions rather than spinning in the nuance of how we phrased something in an email.” — Jane Delworth, managing director at mono

10. and 11. Meditation

“Headspace — 20 minutes meditation a day every day makes all the difference to my productivity.” — Charlotte Smith, partner at Liberty Blue

“Even if it’s just 10 to 15 minutes a day. It centers me, keeps me focused on what matters right now, and helps me to stay calm under stress — which ultimately makes me more productive. Walking meditation is my favorite type of meditation.” — Justine Bloome, EVP, strategy and innovation at Carat USA

12. Podcasts

“My favorite podcast is Ted Radio Hour. I love the diversity of interviews and content matter, which always expands my thinking in new and surprising ways.” — Olivia Fay, CEO and creative director of Rallier

Businessinsider.com | February 4, 2016 |  Kristen Lauletti, Levo League

#Leadership : 15 Surprising Things Productive People Do Differently…Interview of over 200 Ultra-Productive People & Simply asked an Open-Question: “What is your Number One Secret to Productivity?”

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I recently interviewed over 200 ultra-productive people including 7 billionaires, 13 Olympians, 20 straight-A students and over 200 successful entrepreneurs. I asked a simple, open-ended question, “What is your number one secret to productivity?” After analyzing all of their responses, I coded their answers into 15 unique ideas.

Free- Door to Building

SECRET #1: They focus on minutes, not hours.

Average performers default to hours and half-hour blocks on their calendar. Highly successful people know there are 1,440 minutes in every day and there is nothing more valuable than time. Money can be lost and made again, but time spent can never be reclaimed. As legendary Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller told me, “To this day, I keep a schedule that is almost minute by minute.” You must master your minutes to master your life.

SECRET #2: They focus only on one thing.

Ultra productive people know their Most Important Task (MIT) and work on it for one to two hours each morning, without interruptions. Tom Ziglar, CEO ofZiglar Inc., shared, “Invest the first part of your day working on your number one priority that will help build your business.” What task will have the biggest impact on reaching your goal? What accomplishment will get you promoted at work?

SECRET #3: They don’t use to-do lists.

Throw away your to-do list; instead schedule everything on your calendar. It turns out only 41% of items on to-do lists are ever actually done. And all those undone items lead to stress and insomnia because of the Zeigarnik effect. Highly productive people put everything on their calendar and then work and live from that calendar. “Use a calendar and schedule your entire day into 15-minute blocks. It sounds like a pain, but this will set you up in the 95th percentile…”, advises the co-founder of The Art of Charm, Jordan Harbinger.

 

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SECRET #4: They beat procrastination with time travel.

Your future self can’t be trusted. That’s because we are “time inconsistent”. We buy veggies today because we think we’ll eat healthy salads all week; then we throw out green rotting mush in the future. I bought P90x because I think I’m going to start exercising vigorously and yet the box sits unopened one year later. What can you do now to make sure your future self does the right thing? Anticipate how you will self-sabotage in the future, and come up with a solution to defeat your future self.

SECRET #5: They make it home for dinner.

I first learned this from Intel’s Andy Grove, “There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.” Highly successful people know what they value in life. Yes, work, but also what else they value. There is no right answer, but for many, values include: family time, exercise, giving back. They consciously allocate their 1440 minutes a day to each area they value (i.e., they put it on their calendar) and then they stick to the schedule.

SECRET #6: They use a notebook.

Richard Branson has said on more than one occasion that he wouldn’t have been able to build Virgin without a simple notebook, which he takes with him wherever he goes. In one interview, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis said, “Always carry a notebook. Write everything down…That is a million dollar lesson they don’t teach you in business school!” Ultra-productive people free their mind by writing everything down.

SECRET #7: They process email only a few times a day.

Ultra-productive people don’t “check” email throughout the day. They don’t respond to each vibration or ding to see who has intruded their inbox. Instead, like everything else, they schedule time to process their email quickly and efficiently. For some that’s only once a day, for me, it’s morning, noon and night.

SECRET #8: They avoid meetings at all costs.

When I asked Mark Cuban to give me his best productivity advice, he quickly responded, “Never take meetings unless someone is writing a check.” Meetings are notorious time killers. They start late, have the wrong people in them, meander in their topics and run long. You should get out of meetings whenever you can, hold fewer of them yourself, and if you do run a meeting, keep it short.

SECRET #9: They say “no” to almost everything.

Billionaire Warren Buffet once said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” And James Altucher colorfully gave me this tip, “If something is not a “hell, YEAH! Then it’s a “no!”

Remember, you only have 1440 minutes in every day. Don’t give them away easily.

SECRET #10: They follow the 80/20 rule.

 Known as the Pareto Principle, in most cases 80% of outcomes come from only 20% of activities. Ultra-productive people know which activities drive the greatest results, and focus on those and ignore the rest.

SECRET #11: They delegate almost everything.

Ultra-productive people don’t ask, “How can I do this task?” Instead they ask, “How can this task get done?” They take the “I” out of it as much as possible. Ultra-productive people don’t have control issues and they are not micro-managers. In many cases good enough is, well, good enough.

SECRET #12: They theme days of the week.

Highly successful people often theme days of the week to focus on major areas. For decades I’ve used “Mondays for Meetings” and make sure I’m doing one-on-one check-ins with each direct report. My Friday afternoons are themed around financials and general administrative items that I want to clean up before the new week starts. I’ve previously written about Jack Dorsey’s work themes, which enable him to run two companies at once. Batch your work to maximize your efficiency and effectiveness.

SECRET #13: They touch things only once.

How many times have you opened a piece of regular mail—a bill perhaps—and then put it down only to deal with it again later? How often do you read an email, and then close it and leave it in your inbox to deal with later? Highly successful people try to “touch it once.” If it takes less than five or ten minutes—whatever it is—they’ll deal with it right then and there. It reduces stress since it won’t be in the back of their mind, and is more efficient since they won’t have to re-read or evaluate the item again in the future.

SECRET #14: They practice a consistent morning routine.

My single greatest surprise while interviewing over 200 highly successful people was how many of them wanted to share their morning ritual with me. Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning, told me, “While most people focus on ‘doing’ more to achieve more, The Miracle Morning is about focusing on ‘becoming’ more so that you can start doing less, to achieve more.” While I heard about a wide variety of habits, most people I interviewed nurtured their body in the morning with water, a healthy breakfast and light exercise. They nurtured their mind with meditation or prayer, inspirational reading, and journaling.

 SECRET #15: Energy is everything.

You can’t make more minutes in the day, but you can increase your energy which will increase your attention, focus, decision making, and overall productivity. Highly successful people don’t skip meals, sleep or breaks in the pursuit of more, more, more. Instead, they view food as fuel, sleep as recovery, and pulse and pause with “work sprints”.

Tying It All Together

You might not be an entrepreneur, Olympian, or millionaire—or even want to be—but their secrets just might help you to get more done in less time, and help you to stop feeling so overworked and overwhelmed.

–

Kevin Kruse is the author of the bestselling book 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management and the free online “How Millionaires Schedule Their Day: A 1-Page Planning Tool.”

 

Forbes.com |  January 20, 2016 | Kevin Kruse

#Strategy : 5 Ways to Stay #Productive During the Holidays…Between Parties, Shopping, & Vacation Time, it’s a Wonder Anyone Gets any Work Done Around the Holidays.

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The Holidays are a Hectic Time for many Professionals, and People React Differently Under Pressure

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