Friendly reminder: Click the blue text above “FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting” to learn more about marketing and distributor internal management. (Based on the latest research results from Oxford University's survey of 1,050 college students) Unlike the usual list of beneficial habits to cultivate, this article aims to highlight seven habits we should avoid. Just as it's important to find habits that benefit you, it's equally important to identify those that hinder you. Most of these habits can easily become part of your daily routine, making it difficult to notice their existence (or how they affect you). I have slightly experimented with these habits, and without a doubt, few important tasks were completed. I should also note that these are just the main habits that can affect your efficiency in life; I'm sure there are many more.
Absence. You may have heard Woody Allen's quote: "Eighty percent of success is showing up." 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. The weather might be bad, you might not feel like going out, or you might have a ton of other things to do. But if you continue to show 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 paint 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 your soulmate increase significantly. Just showing up more can make a big difference in your life. Absence, on the other hand, yields nothing.
Procrastination. To simplify, I'll list my three favorite methods to overcome procrastination:
- 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 entire day highly productive. How do you eat an elephant? Don't try to do it all 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.
- Persuade yourself. I find this kind of self-talk very effective. After spending 20 minutes in bed repeating to myself that I am highly productive these days, I no longer fall into procrastination or feel the need to browse my five favorite websites for updates.
Doing unimportant things. Besides procrastination, one of the easiest bad habits to fall into is being busy with trivial matters. To improve efficiency, you might need some time management method. It could be something very 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 for efficiency, you should focus most of your energy on the few important things. When using this rule, simply write down the three most important tasks you need to do today in order of priority, and start with the first one. 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 so you don't spend days, weeks, or even months on things that aren't very important. If these things are irrelevant, even doing them quickly won't be of much use.
Overthinking. Overthinking leads to little action. Getting lost in endless analysis only wastes time. Thinking before acting is fine. Do some research, make a plan, and explore potential positive and negative factors. But compulsive overthinking becomes another time-wasting practice. You don't need to examine every angle of everything before trying. And you can't wait for the perfect moment to act, because that moment never comes. If you keep thinking, you'll only get deeper and deeper, making it harder to take action. Instead, while thinking helps to some extent, what you need to do now is stop thinking and just do what you should do.
Being overly negative. When you view everything from a negative perspective, your motivation takes a big hit. You'll find problems and errors everywhere, even where they don't exist. You focus on details. If you're looking for a reason not to do something, that's fine. But when you look at things from a negative angle, you can come up with ten excuses every time. As a result, you accomplish almost nothing. You complain to anyone who will listen (and many may not want to), 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 recognize the limits of negativity and realize that your negative thinking is not an accurate reflection of the world. Then try to see 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 the challenge of positivity. It's not easy, but if you accept the challenge and think only positively for a few days, you'll suddenly realize how deeply your perspective and thoughts influence your understanding of the world and the results you achieve.
Stubbornness and isolation. It's hard for people to admit that their ideas aren't the best, so they become more and more attached to their own thoughts, becoming deaf and blind. This makes it hard to make progress, such as improving efficiency. In such a situation, 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? My second piece of advice is to read Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth," especially the chapter on the Ego. As Tolle suggests, if you stop thinking like the Ego, you'll be more open to new ideas and discard old, useless ones. Additionally, I want to add: don't blindly trust books or chase new information, or you'll become a self-help junkie. Apply the new information and what you learn in action, and try it out.
Continuous 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 inevitably lead to difficulty thinking clearly because there are too many stimuli. Here are some potential drawbacks of this habit: Some information you receive may be negative. The media and your environment provide negative information for various reasons. If you don't select information based on your needs, you might fall into negativity, affecting your thoughts, feelings, and actions. This will make you rush to keep up with current events, but with dozens of things happening every moment, it's nearly impossible to keep up. Your life will become stressful. 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 accomplish nothing. 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 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 browsing RSS feeds or your favorite websites. Now, I'm not suggesting you stop reading all blogs or newspapers. But be clear about which ones you really want to read and which are just for killing time. You can also explore other areas of enlightening information. For example, you don't have to get caught up in all the negativity from your surroundings. If everyone around you is procrastinating or anxiously busy with unimportant things, it's easy to be influenced by that mood. If you have a mental door, closing it and focusing on more important things would be a good idea.
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