Did you know that how you behave can ruin productivity levels? I spent years engaging in unhelpful behaviors that killed my productivity and prevented me from improving my time management. Yet, when you’re engaging in these types of negative behaviors on a regular basis, it’s tough to see how your attitude relates to crappy productivity.

It wasn’t until I was well into my time management journey that I realized my thoughts, actions, and words were impacting my ability to get things done.

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Can Behavior Ruin Productivity?

It was purely coincidental in how I made the connection between the negative habits and productivity, to begin with.

Recently, I started Hal Elrod’s 30-day Miracle Morning Challenge after reading the Miracle Morning book. Every morning, I get up an hour early and meditate, do affirmations and visualizations, journal, read, and exercise in hopes that I will improve my personal productivity and time management skills even more so. Doing Miracle Morning has actually been a life-changing experience in itself!

Somewhere around the middle of this challenge, I noticed a behavioral shift in myself. I was more confident from the affirmations. My awareness of myself and the world around me changed from meditation and journaling. Performing visualizations each day helped provide new insight into how my current behaviors affect my future goals.

And then, BAM! I realized how my old behaviors were actually making my time management journey somewhere between nearly impossible and more challenging than it should be.

Are you guilty of these five behaviors that ruin productivity? Find out now.

1. You Have a Negative Attitude

Let’s face it. When you don’t feel like you have a purpose in life, you can’t help but wonder why you’re on this planet in the first place.

What’s the point of doing the dishes (again…) when they are just going to get dirty tomorrow?

What’s the point of doing this homework if I’m never going to do this type of work in my career field?

I get it. If there’s no point, your desire to get things done go way, WAY down. It’s hard to feel motivated when there is absolutely nothing to look forward to at the end of the tunnel. But these negative attitudes ruin productivity. Negative attitudes are contagious, too. It means other people adopt your attitude, and as a result have diminished productivity as well.

When you take time out of your day to connect with your purpose through meditation, journaling, visualizations, and affirmations, these simple behaviors help you to find purpose in life.

Need help finding purpose in your life? These books have been amazingly useful in my library. Read these books today!

2. You Don’t Believe in Yourself

Have you ever started to get confident in your ability to do something, only to completely drop whatever it is the moment you see somebody else performing better?

Talk about an easy way to ruin productivity. I am so ridiculously guilty of this. There was a time back in middle school where there was a girl in church who got to sing a solo. I was beyond jealous and envious of her abilities. Despite how many times people told me I was a good singer, seeing somebody else perform well (not even necessarily better!) just blew my confidence out of the water.

Why is it that somebody else’s actions have to affect yours? I’m 99.9% certain they aren’t even thinking about you when you’re observing them.

No matter what, somebody is always going to be better than you. Don’t let lack of confidence be the reason that you procrastinate. We live in a day and age where people actually like real, authentic, and a bit imperfect.

If you heard that somebody else stopped something they loved because you did that task better than them, what would you tell them? I’m guessing it’s along the lines of “Hey if you keep working hard, you’ll get better! Don’t get discouraged; keep trying!”

You need to give that advice to yourself.

3. You Don’t Take Care of Yourself

Taking care of your body is a must if you want to be more productive. Both mentally and physically.

What’s the likelihood you feel like going for a run after eating junk food? How about going to work after laying on the couch watching television all day?

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with junk food and television in moderation. But the frequency in engaging in tasks that don’t tone your body and mind absolutely affects your ability to be productive and maximize your time management.

Beyond physical behaviors, mental behaviors make a big difference as well. We live in a world where our minds are always engaged in something.

We’re constantly consuming information and this can easily put us in a state of overload. Not to mention, excessive social media use can promote other behaviors that kill productivity, such as low confidence and negative attitudes.

Get outside for a small walk. Or sit down quietly and be present with the world around you. The more you move your body and quiet your mind, the easier it is to be productive.

4. You Put Off Necessary Tasks

Smart, creative procrastinators have this motto: “I’ll do it tomorrow.” And I get it, it’s hard to take action right this very second.

Well, today is technically yesterday’s tomorrow. Have you accomplished what you said you would yesterday? Probably not. No shame or guilt!

But you can’t always guarantee there is a time you’ll want to do whatever task you’re putting off. So not only do you run the risk of not getting the task done for a while, you also run the risk of making the task exponentially more challenging down the road.

For instance, I absolutely detest washing dishes. Blech. Gag. But unfortunately, it’s part of life. However, since it’s a chore I don’t like, I have this poor tendency to put it off to the next day. Now you’re wondering, what’s the big deal about this?

Well, our family eats a lot of oatmeal, grits, and macaroni and cheese.

What happens when that gunk sits out overnight? Or for two or three nights, just waiting to be washed?

It freaking turns into food glue. You know what I mean, right? Then you’re cursing yourself scrubbing that sticky gunk out saying “why didn’t I just rinse the dang pot right after eating?!?!” It’s amazing how this concept applies to just more than sticky food. The longer you wait to fix a problem, the more likely the problem gets harder and takes longer to complete.

When you continue to put off tasks that get worse with time, you really ruin productivity levels. Now it’s harder to complete the task for two reasons. You don’t want to do it, and the task is more difficult.

Read: Tip Management Tips for Type B Personalities

When you don’t feel like doing something, remember this advice:

Five minutes now? Or 15 minutes tomorrow?

It makes taking action now seem a lot more desirable.

5. You Assume People Don’t Value You

I was thirteen and complaining to my mother in her car about stuff that was just not true. I was assigning thoughts, feelings, and ‘facts’ to situations and people based on how I felt. She eventually stopped me and asked me something profound.

She told me: “Do you know what happens when you assume?”

Confused, I replied “No.”

She said, “You make an ass out of u and me.”

Ouch. Though, my thirteen-year-old self was more shocked that my mother swore in my presence. Somehow though, this was one of the pieces of advice she gave to me that’s stuck throughout the years.

When you assume, you’re basically just projecting your thoughts and feelings onto other people. You don’t feel good about yourself, so you assume that somebody else believes you aren’t a good person. When you think that you aren’t valued, you’d rather hide under the covers instead of getting your work done. Talk about an extraordinarily fast way to ruin productivity.

I have good news. You don’t have have a neon billboard on your head telling everybody your worst traits.

Don’t Let Your Thoughts Hinder Your Success

Your choices and your habits can ruin productivity and make it impossible to get stuff done. If you aren’t confident in your own talents and abilities, you procrastinate. If you assume that you can’t do something because somebody else does it better, there goes your desire to get it done.

When you engage in unproductive habits all the time, like TV and social media, they all waste your time and energy. If you eat crap and sit all day, you’re probably not going to feel like doing much. If you assume that you’re going to have the motivation and desire to get it done tomorrow, you’re only fooling yourself.

Read: Time Management Tips That Are Causing You to Fail

This article isn’t here to shame you or say that you’re bad if you do any (or all) of these behaviors. What it IS here for is to help you connect cause and effect. If you don’t recognize the problem, changing the habit is significantly harder.

When you stop assuming, complete tasks right away, take care of yourself, improve your attitude, and gain confidence, it’s amazing how much easier it is to get tasks done. Don’t expect to figure this all out today, tomorrow, or even this year! It’s a process, and I’m confident you’ll find the ability to succeed.

What are ways you’ve experienced poor productivity as a result of negative habits? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

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