Default behaviors are the actions you take without thinking. They’re your habits, routines, and compulsions. With more than 40% of our daily actions controlled by our defaults, they’re powerful tools for helping (or hurting) our productivity. If you want to change your life and be more productive you need to first change your default behaviors
“Clear to neutral” Throughout the Day
Clean your workspace to neutral multiple times throughout the day
- When you’re done with your computer, close all apps and browser and shut down
- If you’re leaving the office, spend 5 minutes throwing everything unnecessary away and give your desk a clean
Default behavior #5: Multitasking
Most workers average just 3 minutes on any given task before switching to something else
Default behavior #8: Constantly being available (even outside of work hours)
In our hyperconnected world, it is easy to feel like you must be available to your coworkers at all hours.
Solution: Tell yourself to do just 5-minutes of your task before you clear the decks
Notice when you feel like you have to take care of everything else and be okay with that feeling
- Turn toward your most important task with an open heart, realizing that you must do that task first if you truly love yourself
- If a task feels too big or overwhelming, just do the smallest step and then move on to the next smallest step
Default behavior #2: Immediately responding to chat messages and texts
Real-time communication sets the expectation that you’re always available.
- This keeps you from being truly productive and prevents you from focusing on other important tasks at hand, such as emailing.
The solution: Create a communication contract with your team
The only way you can change your default behavior with communication is to set expectations on response time
- 75% of people have never spoken with a co-worker or manager about their response time expectations
- Change your default notification settings on tools like Slack to support these new expectations
The solution: Re-examine your values and ask how social media fits in with them
To change your default behavior around social media consider how it fits into your larger values
- Keeping your core values front and center can motivate you to keep apps and tabs closed throughout the day
Default behavior #1: Keeping your inbox always open
Responding to emails feels productive, but this isn’t helping you spend time on meaningful work
- Emails are rarely the most important thing on your to-do list, so how do you stop them from taking over your days?
The solution: Set guardrails on your workday
Quit chat and email apps at the end of the day and delete them off your phone.
- Disable notifications when you’re with your friends and family. Your goal is to have space to breathe.
Solution
Change from “always available” to working in bursts
- Set aside specific times throughout the day to check, answer, and send any emails you want to
- This will help you focus on more meaningful work and communicate in “bursts” which makes teams more productive and creative
The solution: give your work the respect it deserves and focus on single-tasking
When you multitask, you train your mind to be distracted
- You also end up taking longer, doing poor work, and being less creative
- Do you believe that your work is important? If so, then it deserves your full attention
- Give that one thing your full respect and work on it exclusively
Default behavior #6: Using too many productivity apps
Bouncing between Omnifocus, Todoist, Things, Wrike, and Planio might seem like you’re being productive, but they could be seen as thinly-veiled multitasking
Default #4: Leaving endless tabs open
Having a huge number of tabs open at all times will almost always lead to a serious drop in productivity
- Not only do you have to constantly hunt for the tab you need to use, but you are unnecessarily opening yourself up to distraction
Constantly monitor social media
Even a simple social media check while working can eat up 20-80% of your productive time
- Avoid compulsively checking social media throughout the day and at the beginning of the morning
- This limits your productivity and limits how much you can accomplish
Choose the right tools for your task flow
Productivity is not primarily tied to tools, it’s tied to your behavior.
- Take a few moments to do a quick productivity app audit: write down the tools you use and why they’re important to you. Pick only the ones that you absolutely need and delete the rest.
Default behavior #7: Clearing the decks
Important tasks seem hard or overwhelming, and so instead of working on those important tasks, you do a bunch of little things
- These little things may feel productive, but they’re really not
- Clear your inbox, stay up to date on all your emails, and keep track of important things
Change your behaviors, change your life
True change comes when you fundamentally change the way you think about things like email, texting, and social media.
- Only when you do these things will your life change for the better, and it’s not enough to rely on hacks, tricks, and tricks.
