Your Workplace Habits: Are They Productive?

Getting into a routine at work is pretty common regardless of your profession. Developing workplace habits isn’t automatically a bad thing as long as they don’t deter you from achieving your goals. As accounting recruiters, we know how easy it can be to become distracted or overwhelmed at work. If you’re struggling to complete your work, you may have cultivated some habits that are no longer productive for you. You may not even be aware that they are limiting your productivity and potentially sabotaging your career advancement. Once you are able to recognize and change these habits, you’ll be more likely to succeed on your career path. Here are some workplace habits that could be slowing you down.

Not Taking Breaks

Workplace breaks are a necessity for maintaining a sense of calm focus throughout the day. Although stepping away from your desk might seem counterproductive, numerous studies have shown that taking breaks improves your productivity, mental well-being and overall work performance. The busy season can be a stressful time for those working in public accounting jobs in St. Louis, or anywhere else for that matter. So, it’s important to take adequate breaks to help prevent job burnout. Make an effort to shut down your computer and step away from your desk for lunch. This way you’ll be more clear and focused for the rest of your day.

Zoning Out

From endless social media notifications to checking email too frequently, the number of distractions in the workplace continues to grow. Since it’s becoming more and more challenging to maintain focus in the office, you need to recognize when you’re in a productive flow. Similar to surfing, you want to ride this wave as long as you can without any distractions, because when you take your attention away from your work, you will be stuck waiting for the next wave to build which can take quite a bit longer than most people realize.

Multitasking

There was a time when multitasking seemed like a valuable quality to have when working in accounting jobs, or other finance careers, around the country. But extensive research has taught us that it’s actually more productive to work on just one task at a time. It’s such a hard habit to break because it feels like we are accomplishing more when we are working on several different projects at once. But inevitably, something always falls through the cracks when we are juggling too many tasks at the same time.

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