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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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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).
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.
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!
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.
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).
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.
Articulo
Nada sabotea tu productividad como los malos hábitos. Son insidiosos, se arrastran
lentamente hacia ti hasta que ni siquiera notas el daño que están causando.
Los malos hábitos te ralentizan, disminuyen tu precisión, te vuelven menos creativo y
ahoga tu rendimiento. Obtener el control de sus malos hábitos es fundamental, y no solo
por el bien de la productividad. Un estudio de la Universidad de Minnesota descubrió que
las personas que ejercen un alto grado de autocontrol tienden a ser mucho más felices que
las que no lo hacen, tanto en el momento como a largo plazo.
"Mediante la autodisciplina constante y el autocontrol puedes desarrollar la grandeza de
carácter". -Grenville Kleiser.
Algunos malos hábitos causan más problemas que otros, y los nueve que siguen son los
peores infractores. La eliminación de estos hábitos aumentará su productividad y le
permitirá disfrutar del estado de ánimo positivo que acompaña a un mayor autocontrol.
Dejando fuera las tareas difíciles. Tenemos una cantidad limitada de energía mental y,
a medida que agotamos esta energía, nuestra toma de decisiones y nuestra productividad
disminuyen rápidamente. Esto se llama fatiga de decisión. Cuando pospones tareas
difíciles hasta altas horas del día porque son intimidantes, las guardas cuando estás en tu
peor momento. Para vencer la fatiga de la decisión, debe abordar tareas complejas por la
mañana cuando su mente está fresca.
Usar su teléfono, tableta o computadora en la cama. Este es uno muy grande que la
mayoría de la gente ni siquiera se da cuenta daña su sueño y productividad. La luz azul
de onda corta desempeña un papel importante en su estado de ánimo, nivel de energía y
calidad del sueño. Por la mañana, la luz del sol contiene altas concentraciones de esta luz
azul. Cuando tus ojos están expuestos a ella directamente, la luz azul detiene la
producción de la hormona que induce el sueño melatonina y te hace sentir más alerta. Por
la tarde, los rayos del sol pierden su luz azul, lo que le permite a su cuerpo producir
melatonina y comenzar a hacer que adormezca.
Por la noche, su cerebro no espera ninguna exposición a la luz azul y es muy sensible a
ella. La mayoría de nuestros dispositivos nocturnos favoritos (computadoras portátiles,
tabletas, televisores y teléfonos móviles) emiten luz azul de onda corta y, en el caso de su
computadora portátil, tableta y teléfono, lo hacen de manera brillante y directa. Esta
exposición perjudica la producción de melatonina e interfiere con su capacidad para
conciliar el sueño y también con la calidad de su sueño una vez que se queda dormido.
Como todos hemos experimentado, una mala noche de sueño tiene efectos desastrosos
sobre la productividad. Lo mejor que puede hacer es evitar estos dispositivos después de
la cena (la televisión está bien para la mayoría de las personas, siempre que se sienten lo
suficientemente lejos del televisor).
Reuniéndolo todo. Algunos de estos hábitos pueden parecer menores, pero se suman. La
mayoría equivalen a una elección personal entre placeres inmediatos y duraderos.
Después de todo, el peor hábito es perder la noción de lo que realmente te importa.