Capital Accounting

Five bad habits that are reducing your productivity

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It goes without saying everyone wants to perform at their A-game level.  Don’t get caught up doing these five bad habits – they will do nothing for your productivity!

  1. Coffee for breakfast: Most kiwis enjoy a hot flat white to start the day, by all means, keep this up! But team it with a nutritious breakfast. There are easy healthy options to keep energy levels up.
  2. Working long hours: An eight hour day is what most people work. Studieshave shown that those who work more than eight hours a day have lower productivity and higher burnout rates than those who don’t. Make sense, you need to recharge your batteries in order to get up and go the next day.
  3. Eating lunch at your desk: It’s important to get up and stretch every hour, as well as taking a lunch break away from your desk. It is often easy to sit and eat while typing an email but you need to let your brain have a rest so that you can come back in the afternoon refreshed and ready to roll. A healthy lunch in a break room and quick 20 min walk around the block will keep you far more focused in the afternoon hours than not stopping and inhaling a burger at your desk and falling asleep at your desk
  4. Pack in the zzz’s: Speaking of sleep, do you get your full eight hours? Most business owners don’t, and it’s killing their productivity. Researchhas shown that getting five hours or less of sleep several nights in a row affects you in the same way that having a 0.10 blood alcohol level does. Without enough rest you are more likely to make mistakes and slip up doing important tasks. Plenty of people can survive happily and productively on 6 hours of sleep. You know your body. Get enough zzz’s in to function well the following day.  Feel refreshed and recharged!
  5. Multi-tasking: You may think you’re being more productive when you try to do two things at once, but you’re fooling yourself. Your brain may be good at switching quickly between tasks, but it still causes a loss of focus, creativity and productivity. By focusing on one task at a time, you’ll get more done overall.