7 Unproductive Habits That Will Ruin Your Productivity

Unproductive habits to stop doing so you don’t hit rock bottom.

Whenever I felt that I wasn’t productive, I tended to beat myself up. When it comes to improving in anything, it always starts with knowing what the bad habits are that are holding you back. This is where I started when I noticed I was lacking productivity.

This blog post will share 7 unproductive habits that can sabotage your productivity and cripple your progress. By understanding these unproductive habits, you’ll gain insights into how these habits ruin your productivity. This is for anyone who wants to get better with their productivity, time management, and their overall self-esteem. Whether we like it or not, when we feel productive, we feel better about ourselves.

Let’s dive in.

1 – Decision Fatigue

Decision fatigue refers to when you need to make so many choices throughout the day. For example, you can experience decision fatigue in the morning when you have to decide what to wear, what to eat, what to bring to work, and what to do next. As you can see, making decisions can take much time and feel exhausting!

When you experience decision fatigue (aka feeling tired from making all these decisions), not only do you waste time, but you also waste energy. It ruins your productivity because your time and energy could’ve been spent on more important things.

That’s why, one of the ways to enhance productivity is to prepare everything the night before. Going back to your mornings, instead of deciding what to wear, eat, what to bring to work, and what tasks you’re going to do in the morning, do it the night before.

So, when it’s your morning, you can use your time and energy to get started with what you need to do. You don’t need to worry about finding an outfit to wear, decide what to eat, what to bring to work, and what’s on your to-do list, because you already did it the night before.

Ultimately, prepare everything the day before because you will thank yourself later.

2 – Using Social Media as Downtime

This is where you use social media during your blocks of free time, such as scrolling through your feed.

However, even though social media can provide temporary relaxation, using it too much can be unproductive and ruin your productivity. When you spend too much time on social media, not only do you waste time, but you also become more distracted.

One of the ways to maintain your productivity is to first, limit your social media use, and also, do other activities that don’t involve going on social media.

Maybe instead of going on social media in your free time, you can do something that brings more benefits such as going for a walk or doing chores. If you are going on social media because it gives you a dopamine hit, you can potentially read a short article or a book summary instead.

This is not to say to never use social media ever again. The point is to be mindful when you use it, and for social media to not be the only activity you do whenever you find yourself with free time.

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RELATED: Social Media Habits that are Mistakes

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3 – Waking up but staying in bed

How many times have you actually woken up on time, but you were still late because you just stayed in bed?

Look, understandably, this is a very comfortable option. However, it can be unproductive and detrimental to your overall productivity.

When you stay in bed after waking up, it’ll delay you from beginning your daily tasks and responsibilities. You procrastinate on important tasks, and that hinders your productivity. On top of that, it makes waking up early feel a little pointless.

And also, you set a sluggish tone for the rest of the day. You may find yourself rushing and feeling more stressed because you’re rushing.

One of the best ways to not ruin your morning routine is to choose habits that will excite and motivate you. Not only do you want to feel motivated to wake up, you want to feel motivated to get up. If you’ve got the wake-up time down the pack, all you have to do is think of habits that will inspire you to get out of bed. That may be a walk, a book, or listening to music.

Another bonus tip is even putting the alarm on the other side of the room, so you’re forced to get up.

4 – “Just One More” habit

Does this sound familiar:

“Just one more minute of X, and then I’ll get started.”

“Just one more episode.”

“Just one more minute of X, and then I’ll stop”

“Just one more level of X”

As you can see the “just one more” habit refers to the tendency to just do a habit or activity for just one more minute when you know that you should stop and move on to more productive tasks.

This is obviously an unproductive habit for many reasons. For instance, it can lead to a lack of discipline and self-control. Whenever you give into the temptation of “just one more”, you sacrifice time that you could’ve spent on more valuable tasks and responsibilities. And you also create a cycle of procrastination and time-wasting which is not what you want!

So, to fix the “just one more” habit, you can set specific time limits such as “Only When’s”. For example, you’ll only scroll on social media “only when you’re starting up”.

Or you can even schedule a time that you can do your favorite activities at the end of the day after you have done all your important activities. If you’re doing those activities at night (e.g. you’re watching TV), you can set an alarm for when you have to go to sleep. And honestly, sometimes a little self-discipline can go a long way!

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RELATED: Self-Discipline is Like Building Muscles

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5 – Not Having Everything Prepared the Night Before

If you remembered what was talked about in the first point (Decision Fatigue), you know that taking decisions the day of can take up a lot of time and energy. One of the ways to prevent this is to have everything prepared the night before. So, if you don’t have everything prepared the day before, this ends up becoming unproductive.

When you don’t have everything prepared the night before, not only do you experience decision fatigue, but it can also lead to a rushed morning. When you haven’t prepared the night before, you find yourself rushing to find an outfit, preparing a meal, creating a to-do list, and packing your things when you could’ve used that time for something else.

And also, it sets a stressful tone for the day. That’s why, the easy way to not do this habit, is to obviously… do the habit!

The night before you go to bed, you can do the following things in your night routine:

• Make a to-do list for the day
• Prepare your work/school bag
• Lay out your outfit for the next day
• Prepare your lunch (or even better, do meal prepping at the start of the week so you don’t have to worry about cooking the night before).

6 – Constantly checking notifications – e.g. social media, emails.

How many times have you found yourself distracted just by ONE notification?

And yes, we may be guilty of this, but sometimes it just takes ONE notification to make us lose focus.

To add that, sometimes we are the ones that take the initiative to check the notifications before it buzzes.

Obviously, this is unproductive because you’re constantly getting distracted, and interrupting your focus on important tasks. Each time you stop to check notifications, you then have to take more time to refocus on your original task, which decreases your productivity.

To fix this habit, here are a few strategies:

• Turning off notifications for apps you don’t need notifications for – these include notifications for anything that is not a messaging or reminders app such as games.
• Having designated time for scheduling notifications – for example, you only check notifications after doing 2 hours of studying.
• Put your phone in another room if you find that it’s always distracting you.
• Scheduling a time to batch all your emails and answering your messages.

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RELATED: Digital Habits for Personal Growth

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7 – Skipping Breaks

Having breaks allows you to rest and recharge. You need breaks to maintain your productivity and maintain concentration. That’s why, skipping breaks is unproductive and ruins productivity because it can lead to burnout and decrease overall efficiency.

When you think about it, the quality of your work and the tasks you do declines, leading to slower progress.

That’s why it’s so important to prioritize regular breaks during your workday. Here are some ways that can help you implement breaks in your routine:

• Setting specific break times and sticking to them.
• Using the pomodoro technique – this is where you work for 25 minutes, then have a 5-minute break (“pomodoros”). After 3-4 of these pomodoros, you take a longer 15–20-minute break.
• Incorporate physical activity into your breaks.

Take a SMALL STEP

Here are some small steps you can take to break each of these habits:

1. Decision Fatigue – Make a list of things you need to prepare every night. Use that checklist every night, so you can avoid decision fatigue in the morning.
2. Social media as downtime – List down 3 activities you can do instead of going on social media.
3. Waking up but not getting up – List down 3 activities that you know excite you to get up in the morning.
4. Just “one more” habit – Create an “only when” limit for those habits you use the “just one more” habit for. (e.g. you’ll only use social media when you’re standing up, the moment you want to sit down, you have to get off it).
5. Not have everything prepared the night before – Do action step number 1 in Decision Fatigue.
6. Constantly checking notifications – Turn off notifications for apps you don’t need notifications for (e.g. games app).
7. Skipping Breaks – List down 3 recharging activities you’ll do on your breaks, so you feel motivated to take them (e.g. quick walk, snack… no social media okay!)

To Wrap Up

As productivity is essential for achieving our goals, there are many unproductive habits that can hinder our progress. From decision fatigue to skipping breaks, it’s important that we’re not doing these unproductive habits, so we can continue to spend our time and energy on tasks that really matter.

If you want to continue to improve your productivity, I highly suggest you check out my free mini e-book, Small Steps to Productivity that is available in the Free Resources Library! You can download it here, and you’ll also access many more free resources!

But remember, that when it comes to being more productive, it’s about progress. Embrace the small steps you take and soon you’ll see the difference it’ll make.

-Lauren 😊

P.S I recommend, you read these blog posts next:

• Productivity Mistakes You Could Be Making
• Habits for Better Productivity
• Busting These Productivity Myths (that are extremely unhelpful)

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