7 Unhealthy habits that affects your productivity

While the title of this post seems a little bit unrelated right now but after reading this post you will see my point. Lately, I have been very stressed out. Why? Because I am overworking myself. This Blog, Local Business, other projects and more. In the past few days I saw myself a bit unproductive. My work rate was slowing down. Creative ideas wasn’t hitting my mind. Until my mom and friends pointed out my daily schedule and how it is getting weird. Than I started analyzing myself. I came up with the list of my unhealthy habits that is effecting my productivity in blogging and working online. Good thing is that I caught myself early before the damage can be severe. Read the tips so you can avoid these things.

1) Lack of Sleep – Sleeping was not something that I was considering as a necessity. With excessive amount of work and meetings, I was postponing blog post and other work to later in the night when everyone else is sleeping. Now my schedule was something like this: I work in the day such as go outside and meet clients. I come home work on the computer a bit. Take care of designing orders. At Night I work until 6 a.m or so. Thats actually the morning. I take a nap and get back up around 10. So in 24 hours, I was only getting 4 hours of sleep. Yikes.. 20 hours of hard work. VERY Unhealthy.

2) Caffeine Intake – is also something that I was heavily relying on so I can continue my normal routine. I was drinking atleast one energy drinks a day. Sometimes Redbull other times Monster. I was drinking nearly 24oz. of Soda. 2 cups of Coffee in the morning and one cup in the evening. That is alot of Caffeine there!!! I was up all day running around, and I crash sleep for 4 hours. But during the caffeine intake there was another thing that I was lacking. I wasn’t getting hungry…

3) Anorexic Behavior – Well since I was taking so much caffeine, I wasn’t eating alot because I never feel hungry. So I have coffee than I have soda, no space for food. I was only having one real meal in the day. Which was impacting my attitude alot. It was fine for a first few days, but than I was losing energy.

4) Unhealthy Diet – Aside from one real meal. I was eating alot of snacks. Ofcourse Junk Food. Sometimes it was choclate, other times chips, doughnuts, french fries. Nothing really healthy. I wasn’t eating these foods while I was relaxed. Usually these were my breakfast. Except for French Fries, but the rest was my breakfast which I was having in the car.

5) Lack of Exercise – I wasn’t moving alot. I get up and use the computer, leave for the meeting which I drive to. Than I meet with clients in their office so I sit there. I come home and have lunch. Than I get back to work, and I am still sitting. All the Junk food, no exercise. I am starting to gain weight. Feeling sick to my stomach sometimes.

6) Lack of Social Life – While I was continuing my routine, I was losing my social life. The most social thing I did was Plurk. Most of my plurks were about myself having headaches. If my friends or family comes over, they never really find me in a good attitude. I was always exhausted. I was not going to alot of places. And if I did go, I was busy with phone calls. So I was constantly stressed.

7) Avoding the signs – I was avoiding every symptom my body was trying to give me. I would crash every night badly. I was feeling sick to my stomach almost every day. I have headaches all the time. I couldn’t think of creative ideas when I was designing.

All came down to me breaking down. I had a headache all day, not feeling good. I couldn’t work straight. Couldn’t write a good post. I am not talking to anyone in the family. Until my friends and my mom started asking me whats going on. You haven’t been eating lately. You are acting different. Than I started looking into my daily life style, and I found all of the problems above.

I wasn’t being very productive at what I was doing. My blog posts were suffering. I was pushing myself to do too much. I started slowing down. I got back to my normal routine and things started to get better. Than I wrote two successful posts back to back. One was 13 ways I used to promote my blog to success, and the other was about Vlogging 101 – Guide to make all type of Videos.

Now I am on routine which I will try to balance from now on. Here is what I think is necessary for a webmaster to be productive

Good NIGHT Sleep – I noticed that when I was getting night sleep it is much more relaxing. Because people in the house are not making noises. Specially because I have a little brother who is 4. So I can’t have a restful sleep during days. Therefore Night sleeps are necessary.

Well Planned out Meals – Personally I think the food pyramid is BS. So just pick your meals wisely. Some proteins, fruits, carbs. Have atleast 3 meals in day on the right times. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Snack here and there.

Exercise – Exercise keeps your mind fresh. It gives your body the workout it needs and keep you in good shape. So you will not have overweight problem. I am sure if I had continued my schedule, you would see me as another obese person. Than I will be blogging about how to loose weights and things that I am trying. lol

Socializing – Family time with family is a must. You don’t know how much you miss when you don’t interact with your family. Alot of my post ideas come from my family. Like this one was suggested my mother. Socializing with your friends is another thing that is needed. You need to go out and have fun. Can’t work all day. Relax your brain a little.

Limit your Caffeine intake – Caffeine is like something that your body just want more and more. Today one red bull might be enough, but tomorrow you would need 2 to do the same amount of work. The synergistic effect comes in play. I am not saying don’t drink coffee because I know I can’t operate without it, but limit your caffiene intake. Don’t drink excessive amount of sodas because you are gaining alot of useless calories also.

Do the following and you will see the difference. Now I find the energy to write longer and more useful posts. Better quality because I have the energy to do so. Try it yourself if you don’t believe me.

Disclaimer: I am no health professional. I am just sharing my experience with you guys so you don’t do the things that I have done. For health advice please consult a professional. While I understand I am pursuing a career in medicine, I don’t have my degree yet, and for me to give health advices is against the U.S Law because that is practicing medicine without a license.