Work productivity, time management, organization, tools and tips

Recidivism. This term is usually used in connection with career criminals, but you could apply it anytime you fall back into bad habits.  Why do people relapse?  Some reasons:

• The environment for doing it the old way is still in place (i.e., hanging out with your criminal friends)
• It’s easier than doing things the new way because it’s more familiar (“crime’s the only life I know, buddy”)
  
• The consequences of doing things the old way aren’t relevant in the moment (capital punishment is not a deterrent). 

Okay, forget the criminals.  If you reverse the three circumstances above, what do you get? 

Create an environment that makes it welcoming, even enticing, to do something a better way.  Let’s take email for example.  How do you stop whipping through your email box, glancing at each message and then going to the next without doing anything about any of them? 

Tip:  Don’t read your email when you first arrive unless you can devote time to it then.  If you can’t, set aside some other time to open it, read it, delete it, file it or act on it.  Those decisions have to be made eventually, and it’ll be worse if you let them pile up.  If you're slow at decision-making, making a few at a time is far easier.

Tips 2 and 3 will follow.