Breaking Bad Work Habits
By
Carla Arpin
Are your work habits holding you back? You may not even be aware of it if they are, because it is a subconscious habitual behavior, much like smoking…ahem…or biting your fingernails. You do it, or DON'T do it, without thinking.
While searching the web for better organizational skills and time management hints and tips, I developed a bit of a plan, the highlights of which, I've outlined below. Let's make August our middish-New Year, and resolve to wipe out all those bad work habits! Believe me, you'll feel better for it…or so I've heard. ::grin::
~DON'T keep a “to-do” list as long as your living room. Set goals you know you'll be able to achieve. Work in baby steps. One problem I personally have is over-committing and becoming overwhelmed by lists and lists of projects. Break those suckers down to manageable lists, not huge piles you look at that are going to overwhelm you. When you become overwhelmed, you may feel hopeless and lose ALL of your motivation. Not a good thing. Set your priorities and work from highest to lowest. Sounds like common sense, yes? You'd be surprised how often we shirk the hardest project, first. Get the worst over with in the beginning, and the rest is a breeze!
DO recognize your own hard work. Give yourself a little reward when you've completed something particularly daunting, especially if you've been avoiding it like the plague. We all feel good about ourselves when we've accomplished something, no matter how big or small. If you're at home, take a bubble bath. If that's not your thing, go see a movie. Settle in with a good book. Surprise your significant other, and maybe yourself, too, by jumping his (or her) bones. Obviously, you have to wait to reward yourself AFTER work. Above all, don't be so hard on yourself, but realize that employers DO have certain expectations, and rightfully so.
DO ditch the clutter! Organize! This is my absolute worst habit – and why at this point, I need a whole posse of clean-sweepers to come in and take over. It's harder to be cluttered at work – your workspace is more limited. When you work at home, however, like myself, you can spread out everywhere, and believe me, much to my husband's chagrin, I do. I'm surrounded with piles of papers, books, printouts (exactly what do I think I'm keeping them for??) from past and present, and other manner of stuffs and junk that need to be put in bins, trashed, shredded, or whatever. I invented the word scattered. When you get to this point, and I highly doubt any of you are as bad as me, thank goodness! STOP! Take a deep breath, and make a clean sweep of everything. If you don't, you may find yourself starting several different tasks at once, but not completing any particular one on time.
DON'T procrastinate! Here, again, I hold the crown. After watching so many fly by, I've come to realize that deadlines are a necessary fact of life. Continually missing them poses not only a threat to your continued employment and your self-esteem, it is just plain unprofessional. Remember those follow-up files from bygone days?
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