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Habits are powerful. Implementing the right ones in your days can be completely life-changing and push you towards success and achieving your goals. There are so many books written on the power of habits, and how they can be implemented in your life to truly make a change. However, there are also bad habits, that usually we subconsciously pick up, and today I want to focus on those. In this blog post, I’ll share 5 bad habits you need to break today and how to break them.

 

Let me start by saying that this post is not aiming to shame anyone; in fact, I want to help all of us grow and evolve, and develop better habits for ourselves. I’ve been guilty of doing too many things that I knew weren’t good for me, or maybe I didn’t even realize that until I hit burnout point. And that’s the thing with habits. When you have good ones in place, doing them consistently will really take you to the next level, but when you have bad habits in place, it’s very hard to recognize them or know what to do about them until perhaps it’s too late. Are you asking yourself, “What are the best ways to break bad habits?”, then keep reading, because you will find an answer to that today.

 

Because I blog about planning and productivity, of course, I will be focusing on bad habits in regards to this area, because there’s nothing worse than having bad habits in your life that literally kill your productivity. So let’s see what they are and what you can do about them.

 

  1. CHECKING YOUR PHONE AS SOON AS YOU WAKE UP AND BEFORE YOU GO TO SLEEP

I know most of us will probably be guilty of this. The thing is that we literally live on our devices and spend most of our time on them, so this is not a surprise. But, grabbing your phone as soon as you wake up or until you fall asleep at night, can really have an effect on your productivity – AND wellbeing! If you stare at your screen right before you go to sleep, you’ll likely affect the quality of your sleep, because that light will keep you awake and you’ll struggle to fall asleep faster. Or, you won’t sleep as well and will end up feeling really tired the next morning. And grabbing your phone as soon as you open your eyes? A recipe for a difficult day. Social media and the news are FILLED with negative information, or with news that are not very important but will still grab your attention and make you scroll for ages. That’s a huge time-waster in itself because you’re probably supposed to get ready. But also don’t forget that acquiring certain information as soon as you wake up, can really have an effect on your mood and how you’ll feel throughout the whole day.

 

2. NOT DRINKING ENOUGH WATER

I wish I could shout this from the rooftops, DRINKING WATER IS ESSENTIAL! Water is important for every area of our life, and when it comes to productivity, studies show that drinking enough water can actually make your productivity increase by 14%!! When you don’t drink enough water, you likely feel fatigued during the day, you might suffer from headaches, and you might struggle to concentrate on your tasks. Not to mention that obviously dehydration affects your overall health too, and I’m sure we’re all trying to stay healthy as much as we can. Drinking a full glass of water is the first thing I do when I wake up as part of my morning routine, and you should try it too!

 

3. NOT SETTING BOUNDARIES.

This is also something I’ve struggled with for a loooong time, and it’s not as straightforward as it seems to find a solution. What does a lack of boundaries look like? It looks like saying yes to every single thing someone asks you to do. It looks like not having set work hours and doing everything all the time. It looks like trying to please everybody. It looks like never making the time to take care of yourself. Sound familiar? I know, because I’ve been there too. The problem with this is that many people don’t even realise they lack boundaries, but they constantly feel overwhelmed and burned out, and that definitely doesn’t help when you’re trying to be productive and successful with your goals.

4. MULTITASKING.

You know when you’re working on your laptop, watching the news, and talking to your friend, all at the same time? Guess what, IT DOESN’T WORK. In fact, when you’re constantly switching from one activity to another, your brain gets tired and your productivity decreases. BUT, I’m all here for doing multitasking in the right way, and that looks like combining one task that requires your mental focus, with one that you can do on autopilot or mindlessly. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, read my blog post on how to multitask in the right way, and by implementing that strategy you will definitely see a difference in your productivity and focus.

5. NEGLECTING YOUR HEALTH.

You might be wondering what this has to do with productivity, but the truth is that health has to do with EVERYTHING. Your body is like a car, if you don’t treat it right, fuel it right, and do the regular maintenance, sooner or later it will break down. We can really take our bodies for granted until we get sick, and all we wish is to have our health back. The same goes for taking care of your mental health; if you don’t take time to do the inner work and check-in with yourself regularly, you will be driving yourself towards a burn-out point, and no one likes that. So if you want to be productive on a daily basis, there’s no way you can do that without taking care of your body and mind.

How to overcome bad habits

I’m not just going to list the problems and leave them like that, I also want to provide you with some solutions so you can start working on them. The key when it comes to implementing new habits or breaking old ones is to start small. Going small will help you be consistent and more motivated until you can gradually increase them.

 

  1. Instead of grabbing your phone when you wake up or use it until you fall asleep, try to put it somewhere that can’t easily be reached from your bed, and then get in bed. You can read, meditate, or whatever you want to do, without the need of staring at your screen all the time. I recommend you create a morning and night routine so that you can have a structure and create better habits that don’t include your phone. Read my blog post on how to create the best morning routine.

  2. If you struggle to remember to drink water, try to always keep a glass of water or a water bottle where you can see it. And as an extra tip, you might even want to set up an alarm regularly to remind you to drink every so often, so that you really can’t forget it.

  3. Start setting small boundaries depending on your lifestyle. Start saying no to things that don’t add to your life but only drain you, determine and stick to your work hours and don’t do any more work after that, set regular time aside to rest and recharge so that you can be the best version of yourself and make the most of your energy to be as productive as you can be.

  4. Stop engaging in activities that require you to focus on all of them, at the same time. Instead, try time-blocking so you can work on one single task at a time, or try to improve your time management by combining tasks that can be combined, as I shared on my blog post here.

  5. Set goals to take care of your health every day. Do some exercise, as short as it seems; eat healthy and nutritious food; take your vitamins, get enough sleep, journal regularly, talk to a therapist if you need to. Whatever you need to do to truly be the best you.

 

 

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Conclusion on 5 bad habits to quit now

I hope this post encouraged you and helped you to find some clarity and understand why it’s so important to check what habits you have in your life. As per usual, I would love it if you shared this post with someone that might need these tips today, feel free to leave a comment below if you enjoyed this post, and go and break those bad habits today!

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Hey there!

I’m Benedetta, a solopreneur very passionate about planning and organizing. In this blog, I share tips to help you improve your planning and productivity skills, organize your life and business, and get back time in your life to do more of what you love!

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