12 Unproductive Habits Successful People Avoid

“Successfulness” is not something which is defined by the society, but something you define by yourself – whether or not you complete something that you’ve planned to do. Our success often depends on the way we manage our time.

All people are different, but still we all have one thing in common: the number of seconds, minutes and hours in a day. We decide how we use this time – we can either control or waste it.

What’s your choice? Will you take control over your time and achieve your goals, or will you wander around without any aim or purpose?

Below we offer 12 habits which are considered to be unproductive by all the successful people.

OVERLOADING THEM WITH WORK

Successful people often know exactly how much work they can handle throughout the day. Making yourself overloaded and drained from too much work is not a good time-management skill.
Make limitations – all successful people have them.

TECHNOLOGY DISTRACTIONS

We shouldn’t let technology have control over us. Productive people are not attached to their technology devices, don’t spend hours on social networks and keep their phones on silent while working.

NOT HAVING ANY PLANS

“If you fail to plan, it means that you are planning to fail,” you’ve probably heard this quote and as annoying as it sounds, we can’t deny that it is true. You don’t have to write essays on what you are planning to do the next day or week – a simple “to-do list” would work just fine.

NOT BEING FOCUSED

Constant change of the priorities is not a good habit. You should focus on what’s the first, second and third thing you should do on any given day.

WORKING LATE AT NIGHT

We are talking about those hours forced by yourself, not those forced by an employer. You can work late occasionally, but if it happens every night than you should take a look at your schedule.

DON’T FINISH WHAT YOU’VE STARTED

All the successful and productive people finish their work on time, and they never leave anything for ‘tomorrow’ if they can finish it ‘today’.

NOT LISTENING

Successful people are always attentive and interested in listening to new opinions and ideas. They never think that they know everything.
Active listening and paying close attention will help you learn a lot of things faster than others.

DOING IT BY YOURSELF

This happens to a lot of introverts, including me.
If you don’t spend a lot of time discussing the problems or opportunities with others, it means that you are taking too much work on your own shoulders.

RESTING ON YOUR GLORY

Learning to master a few things and then not trying to learn anything new is not a good habit. We have to maintain our brain in a good condition by giving it a daily challenge.

POINTLESS CONVERSATIONS

Successful people don’t speak unless they have something really smart to say. They never engage in pointless conversations and they certainly never organize pointless meetings with unimportant people.

BEING DISORGANIZED

Being organized doesn’t equal being tidy and neat. It is more of making an order in your brain. If you are constantly searching for something you’ve lost, it means that you are not organized. Find a method by which you can organize things and stick to it.

ALLOWING BEING UNNECESSARY INTERRUPTED

Successful people absolutely hate being interrupted while they are doing their job. We accept two unproductive behaviors when we allow to be interrupted while working:

  1. We deliberately disengage our mind from the work.
  2. We waste our time in vain.

You will immediately stop this if you know that according to recent studies an average person needs 25 minutes to fully concentrate on the original task after he/she was disrupted.

You can solve this problem by openly saying that you don’t have time or by simply saying “no”.