Being more productive requires working smarter, not longer, and giving your best every day. Although it's not easy, completing a task in less time is doable if you don't sabotage yourself with bad habits.

So here are 18 things you should stop doing now to become more productive:

Press the “Snooze” button on your alarm clock

You may feel like hitting the snooze button in the morning gives you a little extra rest to start your day, but the truth is that it does more harm than good. That's because when you wake up, your endocrine system begins to release alertness hormones to prepare you for the day. By going back to sleep, you slow down this process. Plus, nine minutes won't give your body time to get the restful, deep sleep it needs.

Prioritize work over sleep

This doesn't mean you should cut back on your sleep. As Arianna Huffington explains in her sleep book, "The sleep revolution," a good night's sleep has the power to increase productivity and happiness, lead to smarter decision-making, and unlock greater ideas.

A McKinsey study showed a direct correlation between sleeping less and ineffectiveness at work. The prefrontal cortex, where the problem-solving functions of the brain are housed, is damaged if we don't get enough sleep. “Working 24/7 is the cognitive equivalent of coming to work drunk,” Arianna Huffington told Business Insider. The trick to getting enough sleep is to schedule dedicated hours for sleep.

Sleeping with a phone next to the bed

Another key to getting better sleep is not letting outside influencers interfere with your sleep.

The LED screens of our smartphones, tablets and laptops, for example, give off so-called “blue light”, which studies show can damage vision and suppress the production of the hormone melatonin. which helps regulate the sleep cycle. Research also suggests that people with lower melatonin levels are more likely to be depressed.

Skip breakfast

Our minds and bodies are connected in many important ways, and rest is not enough to provide energy. As registered dietitian Lisa DeFazio explains, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

By the time you wake up, you probably haven't eaten for 10 or 12 hours. Your first meal of the day is what triggers your metabolism and replenishes blood sugar levels so you can focus and be productive throughout the day. When blood sugar levels are low, it is much harder to concentrate and you are more likely to feel tired, irritable and impatient.

Starting your day off right involves balancing fiber-rich carbs with lean protein, says Lisa DeFazio. While all carbs raise your blood sugar, high-fiber carbs like fruits and whole grain products do so at a greater rate than sugar and low-fiber carbs like processed grains. .

Postpone your important tasks until later in the day

People often start their day by doing easy tasks to get them into the swing of things, and leave the harder work for later. This is a bad idea, and it often leads to important work not being accomplished.

As researchers have found, people have limited willpower that wanes throughout the day, so it's best to do the most difficult and important tasks early in the day.

Check your emails throughout the day
Constant access to the Internet can also cause people to check their emails throughout the day. Unfortunately, every time you do this, you lose up to 25 minutes of work time. Plus, constantly checking email makes you dumber.

This is why strategy consultant Ron Friedman suggests closing email tabs and turning off the phone so you can concentrate on work.

Eating junk food for lunch

Maintaining good energy levels requires eating a balanced meal. According to Lisa DeFazio, lunches high in fat and sugar make us sleepy by 3 p.m. It is therefore important to consume proteins, healthy fats, and to consume carbohydrates easily at lunch.

Luckily, many fast food chains offer healthy meal options that won't leave you feeling dizzy at your desk.

Moral Licensing

One of the hardest things about adopting a new habit – whether it's a new diet, workout routine or work schedule – is the desire to cheat as a reward for a routine.

This idea that we "deserve" to eat a huge amount of generous meals after being ascetic for a week is called "moral licensing," and it blocks many plans for self-improvement.

Not prioritizing
Some people believe that having lots of goals is the best way to ensure success – if one idea fails, at least there are plenty more in store. Unfortunately, this kind of hesitation can be extremely unproductive.

Warren Buffett has the perfect antidote. He saw that the pilot of his private jet was not achieving his life goals, so Warren Buffett asked him to make a list of 25 things he wanted to do before he died. But rather than advising him to take small steps to complete each one, Warren Buffett told the pilot to pick five things he thought were most important and ignore the rest.

Sit all day

Nilofer Merchant, consultant and author of “The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy,” shared how she helped several large companies develop new ideas: “walking meetings”

She recommends not having coffee or meeting under fluorescent lights in conference rooms. It is best to talk while walking 20 to 30 kilometers per week. “You'll be surprised how fresh air stimulates thinking and allows you to bring a whole new set of ideas into your life,” she said.

Multitasking

While many people believe that it's okay to do two things at once, scientific research has found that only about 2% of the population is able to do multiple things at the same time effectively.

For the rest of us, multitasking is a bad habit that diminishes our attention span and makes us less productive in the long run.

Skip your workout

Studies show that morning and afternoon exercise can increase the quantity and quality of a person's sleep – one study showed that exercise adds about 45 minutes of extra sleep – and better sleep leads to a more productive day.

In an article for Harvard Business Review, Friedman argues that adding exercise to your regimen can directly contribute to your job productivity. It highlights some cognitive benefits of incorporating regular exercise into your routine: better concentration, sharper memory, prolonged mental endurance, lower stress and elevated mood, which have "serious implications for job performance." .

Browse the web impulsively

Because most of us have access to the Internet at work, it's easy to get distracted while searching for the answer to a random question that pops into your head.

That's why Quora user Suresh Rathinam recommends writing down those thoughts or questions on a notepad so you can look up the information you want later, when you don't have of work.

Plan too much

Many ambitious and organized people try to maximize their productivity by carefully planning every hour of their day. Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned, and one unexpected event can destroy a person's entire day.

Instead, you can try scheduling just four or five hours of actual work each day. This way you can be more flexible.

Not planning at all

That being said, you need to take the time to strategize before attempting to achieve long-term goals. Trying to find the end of a project halfway through the process can be extremely frustrating and waste a lot of time.

Robert Pozen, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, recommends that you first determine what you want your end result to be, then walk you through a series of steps. Once you're halfway there, you can review your work to make sure you're on track and adjust accordingly.

Having too many meetings

Nothing disrupts the flow of productivity like an unnecessary meeting. And with tools like email and instant messaging at our fingertips, it's best to only hold meetings for serious presentations and discussions that need to happen face-to-face.

The founder of BlueGrace Logistics (logistics company), Bobby Harris, recommends that people agree to attend a meeting if, and only if, the person who organized it has presented a clear agenda and indicated exactly how long the meeting will last. Even then, Harris recommends giving the person half the time originally requested.

Being too perfectionist

More often than laziness, the root of procrastination is the fear of not doing a good job, according to the website The Book of Life, an offshoot of a company founded by British philosopher and author Alain de Botton.

“We only start working when the fear of doing nothing outweighs the fear of not doing it very well,” the site states. “And that can take time. » The only way to overcome procrastination is to let go of perfectionism and not worry about details as you move forward. Pretending that the task doesn't matter and that everything will be fine will help you get started faster.

Think in terms of tasks per hour or day

Laura Vanderkam, productivity and time management expert and author of “I Know How She Does It,” calls this the “24-hour trap” and suggests thinking about time it takes to get things done in terms of 168 hours. , or per week.

“People always say there aren't enough hours in the day, and I totally agree with them – there aren't enough hours in the day,” said Laura Vanderkam to Business Insider. “But fortunately, we don’t live our lives in days – we live our lives in weeks. »

If you look at it that way, it gives you a lot more time – seven days – to do everything you want and need to do, which will make you happier and less afraid to start.