Personal Productivity
Small Changes: Building Habits Little by Little
AUTHOR: David Torné
Habits are a fulcrum to make your life better. But changes always cause resistance, right? If instead of a change, you see it as a subtle adjustment to the way you work, you may create the habit less traumatically. You do what you usually do, but in a slightly different way.
Let me show you three examples that can be applied independently. If you carry them out 21 days in a row, you’ll see that something is going “differently”.
Decide what you are doing tomorrow
Do a short, daily review. Just ten minutes at the end of the day or while you’re having breakfast. In addition to marking tasks that you’re going to do, visualize the how —what specific actions you will take to solve them. This way you will avoid doubts along the day, and prevent that morning unwillingness that makes you choose something minor as startup task.
Get to work immediately upon arrival
If you are clear on what to do, just do it! Leave aside the soft start of the day, with those five minutes of chatting, coffee and reading digital newspapers. Get down to work to be able to harness that first-hour energy. Later, if the day does not go as expected, at least you will have something to hold on. You’ll go home with the feeling of having advanced.
Take advantage of your breaks and rests
Do things when you have something to do and don’t do anything when there’s nothing to do. The latter part seems easy, but the truth is we usually do not know when to stop doing or when to stop thinking about our business. Do you pause between important tasks or blocks of job? Surely, you stop for a coffee once or twice not to end up burnt.
When that time comes, leave your workplace for a few minutes, move your eyes away from your desk, try to talk a couple of minutes with a colleague… Close the task done and get ready for the next one.
Use your lunchtime to do the same. Spend a few minutes walking and clearing your head up. Learn to manage those kind of moments, to break the routine of work. Eliminate stress.
I think these behaviors pay off immediately to who decide to apply them. It’s just an example of how productivity is also about to harness those small opportunities we have at hand. They are things you could be doing right now. Can you think about any other little change to increase your productivity?
One comment
Nice article
Nice article