Transform Your Success: 4 Habits Costing You Time and Productivity, and How to Break Free

Did you know? You are what you consistently do. And your actions, which can become habits, will make or break your productivity, success, and happiness.

Whatever you’re doing at this very moment was probably established by a long-built habit.

Take stock right now of what your life is like and what your workday is like. Reflect on your productivity, your progress, and the results you’re getting. Reflect on your levels of success and happiness.

What if you discover you’re NOT getting the results you want? What if you don’t feel really great about some aspect of your life or business? Are you quick to DO something about it and fix it?

If not, is it because you’re not sure what to fix? If so, it’s time to trace things back.

Start with the result you want—but are not getting—and trace it back to the habits that created it.

If you want to adapt a mindset for high efficiency, powerful productivity, stellar success, and crazy-good happiness, you must pay attention to your habits.

Here are 4 habits that lead to lost opportunities, lost revenue, lost productivity, and strained relationships. If you are stuck in any of these habits, I’ve added 4 Tips from Taskology® to help you go in a new direction and start replacing old habits that aren’t serving you anymore.

1.      If you miss—or you’re late for—appointments, calls, and meetings, you may have a habit of relying on your memory to remember where to be instead of using a reliable calendar to guide you.

Productive Day TIP: You never want to do any damage to relationships or opportunities by being late. Use the digital calendar in your email system and ONLY that calendar for ALL appointments. DO NOT use multiple calendars for multiple reasons. In addition, be sure to include personal commitments on your business calendar and always represent the TRUE duration of each time commitment. For instance, clearly block a 2-hour call for 2 hours on the calendar and not for only 30 minutes.

2.      If you miss deadlines and targets for tasks and projects, you may have a habit of “winging it” instead of relying on a system for managing things to do.

Productive Day TIP: Use a single, central digital task list on your computer as the ONE and only place to manage tasks. If you use pads, notebooks, or planners to try to manage tasks, you’re going to lose time, productivity, and progress every day. 

Same goes when you try to use a bunch of random, disconnected tools, tactics, and apps that don’t communicate or work together. Create ONE inventory for ALL tasks. It’s the ONLY way to get REAL clarity of everything that you’re responsible for.

Pull tasks AWAY from their sources and get them all into one system. Give each one a date of action and limit how many tasks you plan for one day. Centralizing tasks is the ONLY way to efficiently and accurately plan, prioritize, and accomplish the RIGHT tasks on the RIGHT days.

3.      If you handle email, papers, files, and other information more than once and they begin to build up—physically or digitally—you may have a habit of being indecisive.

Productive Day TIP: No matter what arrives in your “inboxes”—email, voice mail, or the inbox on your desk—you must decide: How is this useful to you? What is the value? When will you need this again? Keep it or don’t keep it? 

If you decide to keep something, now you need to determine where it goes. That information must move away from its source and enter into the system that’s MEANT for managing THAT type of information. (Example: if you want to keep that contact information you see in an email, save it in your Contacts system.)

You must get into the habit of processing the information you receive—moving it, saving it, naming it—not only to separate what to keep from what to toss/delete, but also to be able to FIND it again in the RIGHT system for that specific information. 

4.      If you love to be available to others, help others, be part of team projects, and get involved in company initiatives to the point where you’re over-committed or over-stretched, you may have a habit of saying “yes” too often.

Productive Day TIP: Being an accessible leader, a valuable team player, and a helpful co-worker are all GREAT things to be. BUT… when the scale starts to tip in the direction where everyone else is getting your time and you’re not getting much time at all—or you’re not getting ANY—that’s when it’s time to do a reality check.

When you consistently feel behind and out of time, and as you panic, you kick the can down the road on important tasks that need your attention. Or you don’t finish what you start, believing that with so little time, you have to switch gears often to try to keep up with everything. 

But all you’ve really done is left a lot of UNDONE work in your wake.

READY FOR BETTER RESULTS?

Now it’s time to take stock of your workday. Are there some habits you’ve created over the years that you’ve identified as NOT serving you well anymore?

You may discover that a few old habits need replacing and if so, you have some new choices and changes to make.

So, are you READY to get better results?! (Please say yes!)

Or are you just thinking about it?

Are you a DOER or a dabbler? An ACTION taker or a tire kicker?

Are you COMMITTED to creating a better future or are you just INTERESTED?

If you’re just interested in learning new things, but you don’t take action on what you’ve learned, how far can you really go?  If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll continue to get the results you’ve always gotten.

But you already know that.

And I know you want MORE and BETTER RESULTS from the time, energy, and effort you put in every day.

J. Paul Getty reminds us all that Great Habits = Great Success in this valuable quote…

“The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might of the force of habit—and must understand that practices are what create habits. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him—and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires.”

Here are 6 steps you can take to identify and replace the unproductive habits that are holding you back.

STEP #1: Identify and trace your workday frustrations, open loops, or lack-luster results to the habits that most likely created those situations.

You’re not looking for “causes” for these, because it’s too easy to blame your circumstances on someone else or something else. Instead, when you focus on habits, you’re focusing on YOU and how you may have contributed to the present circumstance.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Jack Canfield that I want you to keep in mind when you think about your current situation, results, and outcomes. 

“You either create or allow everything that happens to you.”

Even when you find a CAUSE, ask yourself how you originally responded to it. Your “responsibility” is your “ability to respond.” And that brings to mind THIS great quote from R. Swindoll:

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.”

Whatever started the ball rolling—whenever that was—how did you HANDLE it? And do you handle similar situations the same way every time?

STEP #2: Determine how you played a part in any situation that is less than ideal. List a habit that contributed to each one and identify what each is COSTING you.

Do you miss lucrative opportunities because they scroll off the screen in your email Inbox?

Do you forget tasks or follow-ups, and now that’s hurting client relationships or your sales goals?

Do you have trouble finding necessary information and that’s holding up progress projects?

STEP #3: Identify the BENEFITS you would enjoy when each habit is replaced with a new, more productive, success-building habit.

With a new habit, can you now…

…take advantage of more opportunities to grow the business and strengthen relationships?

…enjoy more time to work with your team and develop them as individuals?

…get entirely caught up on your work and think ahead more proactively?

…make more progress each day on tasks and meet deadlines more easily?

…enjoy less stress and worry, because nothing has been missed?

STEP #4: Determine which ONE habit is costing you the MOST.

Which ONE habit, when replaced, will bring you the MOST success and will make you the HAPPIEST?

THAT’S the one to start with.

STEP #5: Determine the FIRST thing you will do to REPLACE this one habit with a NEW, more productive one.

If you can think of two or three action steps you can take, document those, too.

STEP #6: Get moving! Take action!

Find a habit that’s not serving you anymore and fix it. Work on building a NEW habit. In a few weeks or months, you’ll look back and be forever glad you started TODAY.

If you want to make consistent progress with new, more productive habits, take advantage of our 52-week audio series called The Productive Day® Smart Steps. You'll receive insights and actionable tips and strategies from Taskology® in 2- to 4-minute audios each week.

Get your first Smart Step today.