12 Bad Habits That Are Making You Less Productive

Biting your nails. Chewing with your mouth open. Speaking before you think. This is the kind of stuff we usually think about when we think of "bad habits."

但是，损害您工作表现的不良习惯呢？

我们许多人每天都在做很多事情，研究表现最终确实损害了我们的生产力。And the more aware you are of how these things are affecting your productivity, the more proactive you can be at taking responsibility for your choices.

So, ask yourself: Are you guilty of any of these bad habits? If so, it may be time to cut it out.

12 Bad Habits That Are Making You Less Productive

1) Rushing in the morning.

We all have those mornings where you're rushing your morning routine and barely have time to brush your teeth before running out the door to make it to the office on time. It's when the morning rush becomes a habit that there can be negative consequences to your sense of well being and your overall productivity.

When you start off your day in a frenzied state of mind, you're not giving your brain any time to decompress, reset, and prepare for the day. Instead, you're pumping it with adrenaline first thing in the morning, which can cause you to crash later on.

If your mornings lack time and space to breathe, try waking up 10–30 minutes earlier and starting off with a quick meditation session.According to a 2012 study, people who mediated "stayed on tasks longer and made fewer task switches, as well as reporting less negative feedback after task performance." Try the free appHeadspaceto start: It gives you 10 free guided meditation sessions, with the option of signing up for a monthly subscription.

2）跳过早餐。

I've never been able to skip breakfast, but I know plenty of people who do. Whether you blame it on being too rushed (see #1) or just not feeling hungry, eating a well-rounded breakfast just isn't a priority for a lot of people.

但it should be. Why? Because, technically, when you're sleeping, you're fasting -- meaning you wake up with low blood sugar. That low blood sugar is exactly why many of us feel tired, apathetic, and even a little irritable first thing in the morning. It's not you; it's your inherent need for the sustenance that, you know, keeps you up and running as a human.

What about replacing food with coffee? Sure, the caffeine rush from your morning coffee can help hide the symptoms of low blood sugar -- but it won't satisfy your need for food. In fact, it'll likely cause you to crash later in the day, which can really harm your productivity.

优先考虑健康早餐是提高一天余下时间生产力的关键。尝试具有纤维，蛋白质，维生素和矿物质的健康早餐食品，可为您提供能量。富含维生素B的食物 - 例如燕麦片，香蕉，菠萝和鳄梨，可以help improve your concentration。Avoid breakfast foods with added sugar like sugary cereal, donuts, Pop Tarts, andeven bagels。

3) Tackling the easy stuff first.

It can be very tempting to get all the easy tasks out of the way first before tackling the tough stuff. This is especially true when you're dreading that challenging task. You push it further and further down your to-do list ... until you've left it untouched for days or even weeks.

但是，在当天早些时候处理待办事项清单上最困难的任务实际上对您的整体生产力更好。Researchers have found根据这本书的说法，意志力是一种有限资源，全天稳步下降。意志力本能。So your brain is much better at handling the hardest tasks at the beginning of the day when you're more focused.

Mornings also tend to lend fewer distractions, making it easier for you to get things done. My colleagueJames Gilbert suggeststhat folks "take advantage of morning hours to crank through meaty projects without distractions, and save any calls or virtual meetings for the afternoon."

Creating a to-do list is the easiest way to prioritize tasks effectively. Everyone has their own to-do list style, so查看此最佳待办事项清单工具和应用程序的列表and see which ones works best for you.

4) Checking and responding to emails as they come in.

Email is supposed to help us do our work, not distract us from our work. So why does it always feel like a productivity suck?

为了保持不断溢出的收件箱的顶部，一旦收到每封电子邮件，都可能很容易检查并响应每封电子邮件。实时接收电子邮件通知肯定没有帮助。但是，在工作和电子邮件之间不断切换任务确实会损害您的生产力。

Image Credit:Fuze & Visual.ly

为了帮助您集中精力，请关闭那些讨厌的电子邮件警报，并将电子邮件检查到指定的休息时间。

在Gmail关闭通知:单击齿轮图标，然后选择“设置。在“常规”选项卡中，向下滚动到“桌面通知”部分。从那里，选择“邮件通知”，然后单击页面底部的“保存更改”。

如果您担心会错过一封重要的电子邮件，请尝试选择“重要的邮件通知”，而Gmail会通知您有关过去活动对您很重要的电子邮件。

关闭Outlook中的警报：在“工具”菜单上，单击“选项”。打开“首选项”选项卡，然后单击“电子邮件选项”，然后单击“高级电子邮件选项”。在“新项目到达我的收件箱中”下，清除“显示新的邮件桌面警报（仅默认收件箱）复选框。

专家提示：即使您在检查电子邮件时，也不必立即回复每一个。如果您担心忘记电子邮件，我强烈建议您使用Andreas Klinger的方法在Gmail中进行分类电子邮件，您可以在这里阅读。

The premise behind his method is to triage emails by urgent emails that need action/reply, not-so-urgent emails that eventually need action/reply, emails that are awaiting reply, and emails you delegate to someone else.

5）检查Twitter，Facebook和您的其他社交供稿。

The whole "easily distracted" thing goes for social media notifications, too. Turns out we actually have apsychological urge to check for social media notifications, which makes it hard to check our News Feeds "just this once" -- and usually ends up in a lot of mindless browsing.

As my colleagueScott Tousley says，“我们疯狂地爱上了分散自己的注意力。”

My colleague Alec Biedrzycki solves this problem by removing all social networks from his toolbar bookmarks. "Even if I don't mean to browse them, some uncontrollable impulse subconsciously clicks on them when I experience downtime,"他说。"You can get sucked in without knowing it (or even intending to), so eliminating the gateway to those networks keeps me on track."

To turn off notifications in Google Chrome:打开Chrome，在屏幕左上角的菜单栏中单击“ Chrome”，然后从下拉菜单中选择“首选项”。在出现的新浏览器窗口中，从屏幕左侧的菜单中选择“设置”，然后单击底部的“显示高级设置”。在“隐私”部分中，单击“内容设置”。向下滚动到“通知”部分。

From here, you can either choose "Do not allow any site to show notifications" if you want to turn them off altogether. Otherwise, click "Manage Exceptions" and see what Chrome currently allows notifications for -- and then alter that list as you see fit.

To turn off Twitter notifications on desktop:单击右上角的个人资料图片，然后从下拉菜单中选择“设置”。从屏幕左侧的侧边栏中，选择“ Web通知”，然后取消选中每个盒子。单击“保存更改”。

6) Keeping your phone with you at work.

Raise your hand if you have a small panic attack when you realize you don't have your phone with you -- whether you're sitting at your desk, attending a meeting, grabbing coffee ... heck, even going to the bathroom. (I'm guilty of this, too.)

There's a reason Blackberries were nicknamed "Crackberries" back when they were popular: It's because smartphones are probably the easiest distraction on the planet. And when you keep your phone with you at work, you're putting your productivity levels at risk.

A2015年《实验心理学杂志：人类感知与表现》的研究found that when people who were performing a task that required intense focus received a text or call on their phone, they had more incorrect answers and were more likely to make quick guesses. People who received notification of a call -- even if they didn’t pick it up -- were 3X more likely to make mistakes. In fact,错误率大约相同人们是否回答该电话或短信。

为什么收到短信或打电话给伤害我们的刺激吗uctivity so much? Researchers from that study say that, although the actually moment of interruption is short-lived, our thoughts are disrupted for a considerably longer period, making it tough to refocus.

There are a lot of different ways to curb your phone addiction. The simplest is to turn your phone on silent and put it away while you're at work. If that isn't cutting it, try an app like森林。This app will prompt you to plant a virtual tree when you start working, which "grows" over the course of 30 minutes. The more 30-minute periods you don't use your phone, the larger your forest will grow; but if you leave the app, you'll have to start all over again.

7) Black hole browsing.

You know the feeling when you search for something on the internet, then click on a "related article" or other link ... and before you know it, you've charted the entire Russian Revolution?

Yeah ... I'll be the first to admit it: I do this a lot. It's a dangerous side effect of having a job that requires internet research. It's one thing to mindlessly browse the web outside of work or when you're on a break. (In fact, I havea great list of the best sites for wasting time on the internet在这样的时代。）但是，当您应该做实际的工作时，这完全是另一个。

That's whatTousley likes to call "black hole browsing,"and it's become one of the most productivity-sucking psychological addictions out there.

Image Credit:HubSpot销售博客

你可能会感到like getting lost in the black hole is inevitable, but thereare可以帮助您防止其发生的工具。例如，StayFocusdis a Google Chrome extension that breaks the black hole browsing cycle by blocking distracting websites after a set amount of time. You have a set amount of time to browse a certain website per day, and after that time expires, you'll get this message in your browser:

Image Credit:HubSpot销售博客

It's genius.Read this blog postto learn how to set it up.

8）在午餐休息时间工作。

Eating at your desk doesn't just make you antisocial.According to NPR, it's also "bad for thinking, bad for creativity, bad for productivity, [and] bad for your body." Sadly, though,only one in five peopleactually leave their desks or the office for a lunch break.

To be fair, if you're among those people who take lunch at your desk instead of taking a break, it may not be your fault. Perhaps it's not built into your office culture, or maybe you have a deadline that's pressuring you to squeeze every waking moment out of your day.

但研究显示taking the midday break can be mentally rejuvenating -- and, in many ways, more productive than plugging away at your desk between mouthfuls. The best way to take a lunch break is to remove yourself from your desk or workspace and eat somewhere else -- like a cafeteria, restaurant, or public park. Better yet, build your network at work by eating with a colleague. (这是您在午餐休息期间做什么的更多想法。My favorite is probably "build a helicopter obstacle course.")

9）不听。（喜欢，真的listening.)

One of the sad consequences of being constantly distracted is the epidemic of onlyhalfpaying attention -- and thinking that's OK. You might think that any time someone else is talking and you're not, that means you're listening. But, as我的同事安德鲁·奎因（Andrew Quinn）在他的帖子中写了关于不良的对话习惯, it doesn't. "The real question iswho他写道：“您在听时正在听时吗？”“我愿意在大部分时间里打赌，您实际上是在听自己的脑海中的声音。”

That, or you're reading that email that just came in. Or checking to see why your phone buzzed. When you're in a meeting, how much can you really be paying attention when your laptop is open?

Not only can not listening carefully cost you relationships, it can also cost you in the time it takes to make up for whatever information you missed. Becoming an active listener is a critical part of变得更加情感聪明。这确实，真正地关注人们在说什么 - 这是一项使您在专业和个人生活中与众不同的技能。

10) Saying "yes" to every meeting.

Being "in the zone" is when you lose yourself in whatever you're doing -- so much so that you lose track of time. It's one of the keys to both happiness and productivity at work.

...没有什么能像开会那样破坏。特别是不必要的。事实证明普通人wastes 31 hours in meetingsper month. These unnecessary meetings are ones where you or the organizer isn't prepared, you didn't really need to be there, and so on.

Want to get those 31 hours back? Here are a few suggestions:

• 确保您只参加实际需要参加的会议。If you don't see yourself actively contributing to the group, politely let the meeting requester know that you won't be able to attend.
• 如果您是打电话会议的人，send invitees a note, description, or some sort of heads up along with your calendar invitations.This'll give them an idea of why they were invited or need to be there. Try an app likeDo或者Solid帮助保持会议的井井有条和行动。
• 批量安排会议if you can. This is a strategic way to ensure the time youdohave outside of meetings is spent as productively as possible, since it takes peoplean average of 25 minutesto refocus after switching tasks.

Speaking of which ...

11) Multitasking.

在我们现代，不断连接的生活方式中，多任务似乎是不可避免的。但研究显示它可以使我们效率降低，增加错误和压力，并使全球经济造成每年4500亿美元的损失。

Think you're an exception? Consider this:仅有的2% of the populationis capable of effectively multitasking.For the other 98%, all it does is cause us to be40% less productive and make 50% more mistakes than non-multitaskers.

Image Credit:Fuze & Visual.ly

Remember that bad habit of not listening? People do that a lot during meetings when they try to multitask -- whether it's reading and responding to emails and messages, scrolling through their Twitter feeds, or something else. In fact,92％的专业人士admit to multitasking during meetings, and 41% admitted to doing it often or all the time.

Image Credit:Fuze & Visual.ly

Getting out of the habit of multitasking is difficult, but certainly doable. Removing notifications from your work computer (see #5) and putting away your cell phone (see #6) are two great ways to start. Other ideas include establishing a no-laptop rule for meetings, usingPomodoro技术(where you work in sprints in a way that complements the body's natural ultradian rhythm), and planning your day in blocks that include built-in breaks.

12）睡前玩手机。

Have you ever lay in bed with the lights off and spent a few minutes scrolling through your phone to respond to last-minute texts and emails, check your Twitter feed, or scroll through Instagram? Now, raise your hand if those few minutes have ever turned into half an hour, forty-five minutes, or even an hour.

Imagine how much more sleep you could've gotten that night if you'd simply gone to bed when you first turned the lights off.

但这不仅仅是睡眠量 - 还与qualityof sleep.Studies have shown那些在睡觉前凝视着背光的屏幕的人实际上报告了睡眠较低的人 - 即使他们睡得和不在睡觉前看电子产品的人一样多。这是因为存在和不存在光线告诉我们的大脑，他们是否应该释放使您疲倦的睡眠激素褪黑激素。由于我们电子设备上屏幕发出的LED照明与日光非常相似，因此它可以诱使我们的大脑思考白天，使我们保持清醒的时间更长。

The best way to break this habit? Buy an alarm clock that's not your phone, and charge your phone in a separate room so you avoid the temptation of checking it altogether. If you're worried about missing an emergency call, then try sending those last-minute texts 30-60 minutes before you hit the hay. It'll mean you get more sleep and higher quality sleep, leading you to operate at peak productivity the following day. (Read this blog postfor tips on getting the most out of your sleep.)

其他哪些不良习惯损害了生产力？在评论中与我们分享。