Being more productive means not only working harder but also using every new day as efficiently as possible.
Improving your personal effectiveness will be easier if you do not sabotage your actions with bad habits.
Characteristics of bad habits:
- This is a repeating pattern of negative behavior.
- You can get rid of them with the help of their awareness, motivation and willpower.
- The attitude in society towards them is usually negative. Many people find bad habits annoying and repulsive.
- They can have a negative effect on your health.
- Bad habits interfere with your self-development.
Bad habits to get rid of
1. Bad habits that annoy other people
- Late for more than five minutes.
- Overly explicit manifestations of love in a public place.
- Excessive use of specific slang when communicating with an unprepared interlocutor.
- Sticking on the phone while communicating with other people.
- Eat with your mouth open.
- Do not cover your mouth when you sneeze.
- Chewing gum in the process of communication.
- Talk while watching a movie.
- Spit in a public place.
2. Bad habits that steal time
Many people fall into the trap of such habits as video games, sitting on social networks or watching TV shows.
In general, this is normal if such actions do not show signs of obvious and excessive systematicity, and the behavior itself is qualified as a periodically arising source of pleasure.
Yet the main problem with these habits is that they are completely meaningless.
Time is wasted, you even lose its sensation, so spend it much more than it might seem at first glance.
Sometimes such bad habits can be so reckless that their hostages even stop receiving any pleasure.
These habits should include:
- Senseless surfing on the Internet.
- Sitting in social networks.
- Watching endless video stream on YouTube.
- Concern about spam comments, negative comments and Internet trolls.
- Watching TV.
- Going shopping to kill time.
- Video games.
- The desire to read to the end a book that does not enter at all.
- Worrying that something might go wrong in life.
- Trying to change the other person’s opinion.
- The pursuit of short-term gain at the expense of the possibility of obtaining longer-term impact.
3. Bad habits that are harmful to health
There are many things that are potentially hazardous to health. Fast driving, skydiving, skiing, other high-risk activities.
However, most of these activities do not meet the criteria for “bad habits”, but only have an accompanying element in the form of risk.
Bad habits that are harmful to health include:
- Smoking.
- The abuse of alcohol.
- Chronic lack of sleep.
- Overeating and eating at night.
- Not undergoing a systematic medical examination.
- Not taking action to protect from the sun.
- Bad posture.
- The inability to cope with stress.
- Not drinking enough water.
- Inattentive driving.
- Dwelling on problems encountered.
- Too long listening to music with headphones.
- Wearing uncomfortable shoes.
If you find that any of the bad habits discussed below is repeated in your life more than three times a week, you should consider taking steps to eliminate it.
Bad habits related to food include:
- Too large food portions.
- Eating foods with questionable usefulness.
- The excess of salt.
- The consumption of fast food.
- Sodas.
- Energy drinks.
- Coffee.
- Candy.
- Snack while cooking.
- Skipping Breakfast.
- Chocolate.
- The accelerated pace of the meal.
- Too much sugar.
- Excessive consumption of processed foods.
To be productive means to be self-disciplined, focused, and plan for the future of the case.
This means avoiding the following bad habits at any cost.
- Being slow.
- Multitasking
- Not the elimination of distractions.
- Perfectionism.
- Inability to prioritize and delegate.
- Information overload.
- Too many things to remember.
- Spending time on dreams and imaginations.
- Lack of automation of repetitive tasks.
- Indecision.
- Waiting for the “right” time to start work or delay important tasks until late in the evening.
- Rescheduling tasks.
- Spending too much time planning.
- The lack of regular breaks.
- Too frequent checking for new messages in different devices and accounts.
- Unwillingness to learn new skills.
6. Bad habits that are detrimental to finances
Money cannot buy happiness. Nevertheless, money makes our life much more comfortable, regardless of whether we are happy or not.
It doesn’t matter if you save every dollar, or if you have enough money so that your expenses couldn’t seem like a significant problem, to waste your finances is an extremely reckless task.
Most people work hard enough to earn a monthly income, and it is completely inappropriate to use their money in an inefficient way.
Below will be considered bad habits that not only let your money go down the drain but also prevent you from getting out of the financial hole in which you may find yourself.
- Lack of control over the balance of credit card debt.
- Emotional shopping.
- Not prioritized the debts with higher interest rates.
- Buying on credit small cost, or not much of the right things.
- Payment of fee for using ATM machines.
- Not developed the habit of monitoring more reasonable prices.
- Unused passes, for example, in the gym.
- Buying holiday gifts at the last minute.
- Gambling.
- The lack of planning of the budget, the excess of expenditure over income.
- Spending too much money on entertainment.
7. Bad habits that increase monthly bills for payment
Any of these bad habits alone will not be able to have any impact on your life, but if they have a whole complex, and besides, they are constantly repeated, your expenses may well increase significantly, especially if you analyze them for a longer period.
- Open the refrigerator door for too long, bringing out the cold air.
- Leave the lights on when you leave the room.
- Take a bath, not a shower.
- Leave the mobile phone on charging even when it is fully charged.
- Leave plugged in appliances that consume energy even when off.
- Don’t use the programming function of the existing thermostat.
- Laundry or washing dishes during their partial loads.
- To fall asleep with the TV on.
- Don’t use energy-saving appliances.
It is difficult enough to get rid of nervous habits, as they are usually deeply rooted in our psyche.
Sometimes we don’t even notice about their existence until other people draw our attention to this.
Thus, the first step in overcoming nervous habits is to recognize the fact that they exist.
Watch your actions, trying to be more conscious. This approach will not save you from a bad habit right away, but it will be an important first step for you.
Very often, many of the habits in question are caused by stress, so the best way to get rid of them, in this case, is to eliminate the causes of stressful situations.
Bad nervous habits:
- Talk to yourself.
- Bite your nails.
- Unconscious clicking with a ballpoint pen.
- Crunch with knuckles.
- Bite or lick lips.
- Biting a pen or pencil.
- Pounding foot.
- Unconsciously touch your face.
- Fussy movement.
- Fumbling with the keys.
9. Personal bad habits
- Too late to go to bed.
- Leave your keys or purse in random places.
- To spend too much time and energy to purchase a variety of things.
- Too much work and not rest.
- Not fulfill the promises, especially those you give yourself.
- Don’t listen to what you say your interlocutors.
- Do not return the things you borrowed for temporary use.
- Stereotypical thinking, i.e. like most.
- Hurry.
- Paying too much attention to their appearance.
- Worry for no significant reason.
- To speak with a full mouth.
10. Bad habits associated with sports training
- Not to stretch before exercise.
- Not to build muscles.
- Not to rest.
- To skip a workout.
- Not to cool, not to stretch after a workout.
- Too long a rest between sets.
- Not to change the cardio workouts.
- The steroids and dangerous stimulants.
- To train, being in poor physical condition.
- Unhealthy food.
- To use an insufficient amount of water.
- To train on an empty stomach.
- To raise the extra weight.
- Incorrect stretching.
- To train too much.
- Phone calls during training.
11. Bad habits associated with body care
- Don’t take a shower every day.
- Not to shave.
- Wearing the same clothes.
- Use too much perfume.
- Don’t wash hands.
- Not to take care of your teeth, tongue, ears, fingernails.
- Do not wash before going to bed.
- Never moisturize the skin.
12. Bad habits in the field of relations with other people
Such habits are not limited to manifestations between lovers, but can also influence the relationship between relatives, colleagues, friends and acquaintances.
Anyone with whom you spend more than one hour a week together can be defined as having a relationship with you, even if the relationship is hostile.
- Stay in relationships that degrade the quality of your life.
- Attend social events, parties because of obligations, and not because of own desire or manifestation of love.
- To maintain relationships with people who do not appreciate gossiping, judging.
- To tell other people’s secrets.
- To be inattentive in conversation with other people.
- The desire to show their importance.
- To argue publicly.
- To be vindictive.
- To enter into a relationship just to not be alone.
- Envy.
- Often complain.
- To be constantly negative towards other people.
- To be a pessimist.
- Never listen to the advice or opinion of other people.
13. Bad habits associated with low self-esteem
Lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem are a problem for many people who have difficulties with social interaction.
If you regularly demonstrate any of these bad habits, you should consider how to become self-confident and increase self-esteem.
These bad habits should include:
- To say “Yes” to everyone.
- Self-criticism.
- Don’t protect your interests in fundamental moments.
- Be hesitant when making simple decisions.
- To be afraid of failure.
- Constructive criticism too much to heart.
- To worry for nothing
- Be afraid to voice your opinion
- Too easy to give up.
- To compare yourself with others.
- Slouch.
- To believe that your successes are merely the result of a confluence of lucky circumstances.
- To buy things because they like others, not you.
- Social isolation.
- Excessive preoccupation with one’s own problems.
- Stiffness due to fear that makes it difficult to try something new.
14. Bad habits due to lack of communication skills
If you want to succeed in life, it is important to be able to effectively collaborate with other people, and communication is, of course, the basis of such cooperation.
You can either make a good impression or be the guy that no one wants to see in the general company.
The result is that people either rarely understand what you are really thinking about, or are not even trying to find out.
Getting rid of bad communication habits will help you become more social and increase your effectiveness in communicating with other people.
Bad communication habits:
- Forget the names of people with whom you communicate.
- To be unfriendly here.
- Not to maintain eye contact.
- To forget what and to whom you spoke.
- Gossip.
- Not able to listen and to interrupt the interlocutors.
- Turn dialogue into your monologue.
- Often say “um” and “uh-uh”.
- To be overly critical.
- Constantly arguing.
- To seem nerdy.
- To brag about.
- Abuse-specific slang.
- To exaggerate or mislead.
15. Bad habits associated with cleanliness and order
Little things like keeping clean and tidy at home and in the workplace are actually more important than you can imagine.
In a clean environment, you not only perform your duties more efficiently but also begin to feel more joyful and comfortable.
These bad habits include:
- To monitor the cleanliness of the floor, no vacuuming.
- Scatter clothes around the apartment.
- Not to take off your shoes.
- Leave tangled cables and wires.
- Saving broken things to ever be repaired.
- Do not schedule cleaning.
- To store things or clothes that you have not used in years.
- To buy things that you really don’t need.
- Wash the dishes, leaving them in the sink.
- Turn your balcony into a warehouse.