What's your worst work habit? Do you regularly message your work BFF to moan about your boss? Were you late to a meeting more than once over the past week? Or do you miss meetings entirely because your inbox is so disorganized?
No one is perfect. We could all confess to at least one bad habit (or more) that's holding us back from doing our best work. As a career coach, I'm invested in helping my clients overcome these hurdles.
When you're building your career, striving to be on top of your game matters. But what happens if a bad work habit is forging the wrong kind of professional reputation? It's not too late to correct the course.
Here's how to break three common bad habits that can derail us the most.
1. Consistent Complaining
It's common to complain about work. According to the 2023 State of the Global Workplace report by Gallup, only 23 percent of employees found their work meaningful and felt connected to their team, manager and employer.
Considering the statistics, complaining about our careers might feel therapeutic at first. But if it becomes a habit, your constant complaints can leave a less-than-favorable impression on those who listen to you.
If you've fallen into this pattern and are concerned about cultivating an impression of perpetual negativity, it's time to make some changes. If you find yourself starting to complain about something or someone, here are three quick steps you can take:
- Pause
- Take a deep breath
- Count slowly and silently to 10
Just taking a moment to recognize the behavior is powerful. Next, choose to find a way to work through the problem or issue instead of just complaining about it.
Say you had a bad meeting, a challenging day or a difficult conversation. Instead of venting to whoever will listen, be thankful that moment has passed. Reflect on what you learned from the experience, wipe a clean slate and start over.
Often, the things we complain about feel out of our control. For example, a demanding boss, a difficult client or an impossible deadline. If the trigger that's accelerating our stress levels can't be changed, take the responsibility to find a solution by changing your attitude.
You can take a huge step forward if you can find ways to process your feelings in new constructive ways. This can include practicing empathy or finding a solution.
Say your demanding boss has changed the parameters for your project on short notice. It might be helpful to consider the pressures from an important client that your supervisor is forced to respond to. This requires embracing a broader perspective on the situation versus an instinctive negative or defensive reaction in real time.
2. Out-of-Control Notifications
With email, work chat and constant meeting invites, organizing internal communications can often feel like Tetris. No matter how fast you respond, there's always more coming.
According to Microsoft's 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report, the weight of always-on communications is becoming increasingly challenging for workers to bear. Microsoft's findings illustrate how the inflow of data, emails, meetings and notifications is outpacing our ability to process it all, with 57 percent of time consumed with email, Teams chat and Teams meetings.
If you feel like you're drowning when you open your inbox, start by getting rid of any emails you no longer need. Delete what you can, archive any emails you no longer need, and unsubscribe from any newsletters that have become redundant.
At the start of each day, scan your inbox for urgent or important items and tackle those first, versus what's sitting right at the top and working down. If your inbox is heaving, you focus on what matters most. You don't want to leave an important or time-sensitive email unopened or unanswered for days.
If you're struggling to prioritize a deluge of Slack or chat app messages, briefly assess how your team and your supervisor prefer to communicate. Does Slack take priority over email for disseminating key information? Are Teams messages the default for informal interactions?
Next, allocate blocks of time at dedicated intervals to review messages and process emails, starting with the primary communication channel before switching to review the secondary channel. Treat your communication processing time slots as one of your priorities during your workday.
Creating a system for organizing your emails and processing your messages will help you work smarter and feel more in control.
3. Perpetual Procrastination
When your to-do list goes on for eternity, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Instead of ignoring your growing to-do list, bite the bullet and develop a new system to get the things you really don't enjoy out of the way fast.
First, carefully evaluate how critical each item on your to-do list is. Is it a "must do right now" task, a "need to do this week" task or a "want to do soon" task?
Label the urgency and then schedule the time to complete it based on the urgency. Keep your daily to-do list short and focused on the key tasks that really matter.
Next, get the task you've been dreading out of the way at the start of the day. Set a time limit and stick to it. Working to beat the clock can be a great motivator to get a task done.
Remove any distractions so you can focus on what you need to do and get it tackled faster. If it helps, create a personal incentive as a reward for finally getting the job done such as taking a 15-minute walk or refueling with your favorite healthy snack.
People who procrastinate are often perfectionists. They can struggle with starting or completing a task because they want it to go perfectly. Others leave important things to the last minute because they choose to harness the adrenaline rush of working under pressure.
But if you have a boss, a client, a team or direct reports who look to you to complete deliverables, your procrastination will start impacting others who are part of the process. Embracing new task management habits will enable you to complete tasks on schedule.
Addressing Your Bad Work Habits
If you've decided to address a bad work habit but are finding it hard to stay on track, it can help to examine the consequences. In The Better Habits Workbook, psychotherapist and author Stephanie Sorady explains how to overcome the mental barriers that can make it hard to break certain habits.
When you find yourself repeating habits that have negative consequences, Sorady suggests consciously examining the long-term ramifications.
Ask yourself, if you continue this habit, how will it impact your career over the next few years? Then, take that one step further and consider: if you were to eliminate this habit, what is the potential impact?
If you're wrestling with a bad work habit, consider its potential as a "before and after" success story. The people who command the most respect are the individuals who recognize their challenges and endeavor to address them. Reconfiguring how you approach your work takes committed effort, but it's worth the investment.
About the Author
An award-winning career coach at Twenty Ten Agency, author of Prep, Push, Pivot, and host of the Audible Original series How to Change Careers with Octavia Goredema. You can learn more about Octavia's work at octaviagoredema.com.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
An award-winning career coach at Twenty Ten Agency, author of Prep, Push, Pivot, and ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
