Brian Tracy identifies seven habits that kill productivity: no daily plan, weak self-discipline, oversleeping, internet rabbit holes, skipping your hardest task first, complaining instead of acting, and letting fear of failure paralyze you.
November 21, 2019
Hello, I'm Brian Tracy and today I want to talk to you about some bad habits that are destroying your productivity. Self discipline is a great time saver. It's the ability to make yourself work on only the things that are most important to you. Productivity is an all important ingredient in the recipe for success. Unfortunately, far too many people destroy their own productivity each day with bad habits that could be avoided. If you are ready to start being a more productive and successful person, be sure to avoid these seven productivity destroying habits. The first bad habit that's destroying your productivity is not planning your day in the same way that it's hard to build a house without a blueprint. It's hard to have a productive day if you don't plan your day out in full. Planning out each day can be a great motivator, enabling you to focus in on the tasks that you need to accomplish each day. Failing to plan out your day meanwhile, creates a vacuum that you are much more likely to fill with distractions and time wasting activities than you are with productive tasks. If you would like to improve your productivity right away, purchase a planner and start writing down what you want to accomplish each day. You may be surprised to see just how far planning out each day can actually take you. I use a yellow pad, a notepad, and I write out all my goals every day before I begin and it's made all the difference for me and it will for you. The second bad habit is not having self discipline. One of the most important traits that almost all successful people have in common is self discipline. Without self discipline, it's almost impossible to accomplish anything beyond the bare minimum that is required of you. While a lack of self discipline can be hard to overcome, it is something that anyone can move past with enough effort. If you continually force yourself to go the extra mile, your self discipline will steadily improve over time and your productivity will certainly improve with it as well. Third, sleeping in too often or too late, the early morning hours are the most important hours of the day. These are the hours when the majority of people will be at their most productive. If you sleep in though, you you are missing out on these all important hours entirely. By waking up an hour or two earlier, you can get a lot accomplished while the rest of the world is still sleeping. Taking advantage of these available hours, these golden hours is one of the easiest ways to boost your productivity. Fourth, wasting time online. The Internet has been an amazing invention for mankind for wide range of reasons. However, the Internet is also a major source of distraction and one of the primary reasons that People are far less productive than they used to be. When an infinite supply of entertainment and distraction is always at your fingertips, your productivity is bound to suffer. To avoid this, try putting your phone and other devices away while you are working on important tasks. Keep them in another room if you are able to do so. In order to keep the online world from being an ever present distraction, the best rule of all is Leave things off. Use the Internet to check on your messages and then turn it off for an extended period of time. The fifth bad habit is you're not completing the tasks that matter most to you from first. Mark Twain said if you start each morning by eating a live frog, you can rest comfortably in the knowledge of knowing that it's probably the worst thing that's going to happen to you all day long. In other words, if you start each day by completing your most dreaded task rather than putting it off, you can begin each day with a major sense of accomplishment and avoid the dread that goes along with putting off a major task. The sixth thing that holds you back is the habit of complaining. Complaining and procrastination go hand in hand. The more you complain about a task, the more likely you are to put it off. Likewise, putting a task off only makes it worse and gives you all the more to complain about. It's a vicious cycle and one that is absolutely destructive to your productivity. Keeping a positive mindset and avoiding complaining is an essential key to success. After all, complaining about a task never once made a task complete itself, and it very often leads to a complete loss of productivity. Seventh, you let the fear of failure stop you from success. The quickest way to guarantee failure is to never try. Like the old adage says, you can't let go of the fear of striking out keep you from stepping up to bat. Unfortunately, fear of failure is a very real thing and it keeps far too many people from ever pursuing their dreams. Fear of failure, though, isn't a rational fear, and failure isn't something that deserves to be feared. Even the most successful people in the world had to fail multiple times before they finally succeeded. If you have the right mindset, failure won't stop you from reaching your goals. A fear of failure, on the other hand, will stop you every single time. Now, I'd love to hear from you. So my question today to you is what bad habit is keeping you from success? Leave a comment below and I'll be sure to follow up with you. Thanks for watching. And remember, if you want to change your future, take action and take action now. If you enjoyed this video and feel it was valuable in teaching you about productivity habits. 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