Author: Henrik Edberg | Source: Douban Introduction: Inefficient people are all alike; efficient people are each efficient in their own ways. Just as it's important to find habits that benefit you, it's equally important to identify habits that hinder you. Most of these seven habits can easily become part of your daily life, making it hard to notice their existence (or how they affect you).
Absence "Eighty percent of success is showing up." — Woody Allen Showing up more is one of the biggest and simplest things you can do to ensure more success in life, whether in your social life, career, or health. If you want to improve your health, one of the most important and effective things is to show up at the gym every time you're supposed to. Maybe the weather is bad, maybe you don't feel like going out, maybe you have a ton of other things to do. But if you keep showing up at the gym even when your motivation is low, it will be much more effective than relaxing on the couch at home. I think this applies to other areas of life as well. If you write or draw every day, you'll improve quickly. If you go out more, you'll meet more new people. If you go on more dates, your chances of meeting the right person increase dramatically. Just showing up more can make a big difference in your life. Absence only leads to inaction.
Procrastination I won't dwell on the symptoms of procrastination. My three favorite ways to overcome it are: ★ Eat the frog That is, tackle the hardest and most important tasks at the very beginning of the day. A good start in the morning keeps your spirits high and your motivation positive throughout the day. This often makes your whole day highly productive. ★ Eat the elephant Don't try to do everything at once; that will overwhelm you and lead to procrastination. Break a task into small, actionable steps, then focus only on the first step until it's done, then move on to the next. ★ Convince yourself I find this guided adjustment effective. After I spent 20 minutes repeatedly telling myself that I would be highly productive for the next few days, I stopped falling into procrastination or constantly refreshing my five favorite websites.
Always Doing Trivial Things One symptom of procrastination is being busy with unimportant things. To improve efficiency, you might need some time management method, which can be extremely simple, like using the 80/20 rule at the start of the day. The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, states that 80% of results come from 20% of efforts. So to be efficient, you should focus most of your energy on a few important things. When using this rule, simply write down the three most important things you need to do today in order of priority, then start with the first. Even if you only complete one of them, you've still done the most important thing today. You might also prefer other methods like GTD. But no matter how you organize your work, the key is to find the most important tasks. Every day, record a "Top 3 Most Important Things" list in Evernote, and in the evening you can summarize directly in the notes. You can also combine them for weekly or monthly summaries and improvements. This works better than a simple GTD app.
Inability to Stop Thinking Because of overthinking, you take little action, and endless analysis only wastes time. Thinking before acting is fine. Do some research, make a plan, explore potential positives and negatives. But compulsive overthinking is extremely time-consuming. You don't need to examine every angle before trying, and you can't wait for the perfect time to do something because that time will never come.
Being Too Negative When you consider everything from a negative perspective, your motivation gets a big hit. You'll find problems and errors everywhere, problems that don't actually exist, and in the end, your "doing something" doesn't exist either. So you accomplish almost nothing. You complain to anyone who will listen (and many don't want to hear it) about how bad your job, life, and boss are. Your life depends on how you view the world, and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. One solution is to understand the limits of negativity and realize that your negative thinking is not an accurate reflection of the real world. Then try to look at things from other angles. For example, you can try to cultivate a habit of thinking more positively and optimistically, which will greatly help you. In this way, you might start to take on this positivity challenge. It's not easy, but if you accept the challenge and think only positively for seven consecutive days, you'll suddenly realize how deeply your perspective and thoughts influence your understanding of the world and the results you achieve. If you look back at your old diary entries, you'll see how much you've grown. So, why not record the "7-day change of perspective" in Evernote? A week isn't long, but it's enough to change some things.
Isolation People find it hard to admit that their own ideas aren't the best, so they become more and more attached to their own thoughts and turn a blind eye to other possibilities. This makes it hard to make progress, such as improving efficiency. In this state, even seriously considering the possibility of changing your life becomes difficult. Obviously, one solution is to open your mind. Broaden your horizons, learn from the mistakes of others and yourself, and gain knowledge from resources like books. As with anything, this is easier said than done. As mentioned earlier, my advice is to recognize that your knowledge is limited and that your way of doing things may have flaws. So why not try something new? I also want to add: don't blindly trust books or chase new information, or you'll become a self-help addict.
Information Overload Information overload doesn't mean you read too much; I mean an excess of all input information. If you let all information flood into your brain, it will certainly make it hard to think clearly because there are too many stimuli. Here are some potential drawbacks of this habit:
- Some of the information you receive may be negative. The media and your surroundings provide negative information for various reasons. If you don't choose information selectively, you might fall into negativity, which affects your thoughts, feelings, and actions.
- It makes you rush to keep up with current events, but dozens of things happen every moment, making it nearly impossible to catch up. Your life becomes full of stress.
- If you're constantly bombarded with information and try to categorize it all, you'll find it hard to make decisions and take action. Personally, if I get too much information, it causes a kind of paralysis, and I get nothing done. Or you might be trapped by this habit, busy all day with unimportant things. To concentrate, think clearly, and take action, you need to be more selective in absorbing information. Avoid distractions as much as possible when working. Turn off your phone, disconnect from the internet, and close the door. You'll be amazed at how much you can accomplish when you're not interrupted every five minutes and don't have the chance to procrastinate by checking WeChat.
Finally, let's summarize these 7 habits to reinforce them and stay one step further from inefficiency.
- Absence
- Procrastination
- Always doing trivial things
- Inability to stop thinking
- Being too negative
- Isolation
- Information overload
-END-
The best learning platform for FMCG distributors in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and actionable tutorials for companies and distributors Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get the corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent article selection | 002 Distributor market operations | 003 Terminal visit management | 004 Sales supervisor skills | 005 Sales improvement techniques | 006 Channel expansion | 007 Managing distributors | 008 Distributor development | 009 Distributor internal operations management | 010 Team management | 011 Efficient distribution techniques | 012 Sales manager's skills | 013 KA operation methods and strategies | 014 First lesson for new salespeople | 015 Internet, brands | 016 Distributor B2B transformation | [Long press QR code to follow]