133: Habits That Hinder Your Productivity

This episode is about habits. I know. I can hear you groaning now. Why is it that we have such an adverse reaction to habits? Maybe it’s because we generally associate the word habit with our bad habits.

Whether we realize it or not, our habits make up much of what we do each day. Just think about it with me for a second. We get up in the morning, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush our teeth, and probably do other things to prepare us for the day. Often we complete these tasks without really thinking too much about them. They have become habits.

Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, says that a habit is a choice we deliberately make at some point, and then stop thinking about, but continue doing, often every day.

Habits are at the base level of our time management system, whether we think we have a system or not. We start with habits that, when put together, become routines that, in turn, make up how we spend the majority of our time each day.

Here is another quote from The Power of Habit. Duhigg says, “Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products of well-considered decision making, but they’re not. They’re habits. And though each habit means relatively little on its own, over time, the meals we order, what we say to our kids each night, whether we save or spend, how often we exercise, and the way we organize our thoughts and work routines have enormous impacts on our health, productivity, financial security, and happiness.”

So I think it’s safe to say we need to spend some time identifying our habits and assessing whether or not they are serving us well. Recognizing when our habits keep us from living out our priorities is the first step in breaking unhealthy habits.