On 5. I'd take the higher $ regardless of what other people make. Even if I had the choice of taking a job where I'd make half what the lowest paid person makes in a company where employees are paid $120k on up or where I'd make the average in a company where they make from $40k - $60k. I'd take the $60k knowing I'd be the lowest paid in the company. I don't tie my self worth to how well I do in comparison to other people. I compare what I have now to what I can get tomorrow.
If I may chip in,<p>0. <i>Lack Of Respect For Time</i>- A person who does not respect time will be limited in what he can accomplish in this world, regardless of talent. Besides your own, if you don't respect other people's time, your integrity depletes by the second until there is none left. Almost everything else is a byproduct of this, positive or negative.
Good, article, but let's be honest here. We all know this is the real list:<p>1. Reddit/HN/Digg/etc.<p>2. Facebook (move to #1 if you play Farmville or are female)<p>3. Steam/xbox/playstation/WOW/Dwarf Fortress<p>4. Checking Email<p>5. Watching videos/movies/tv<p>6. Doing something pointless on your phone<p>7. Etc. Choose your own time-waster
I'm hoping he's trying to be facetious in this article because the only "ineffective habit" that I see in this article is #1. And, I could argue that is not always a bad thing because of the quality-of-life benefits you get from seeing the 'big game' or spending time with your friends.<p>#2 and #6 are pretty much saying the same thing. Both speak to how people tend to be over-optimistic with work they're planning to take-on and are unable to take into account of the possible delays to doing that work. Also with #2, It's not clear if he's saying that planning itself is a ineffective habit or if its just the inability to take into account future events.<p>I'd lump #3 and #4 together as both of these are symptoms of the same problem as well, seeking constant distraction.<p>#5 is poorly described as it does not describe a habit. He should call this the "keeping up with the Jones's." Either way, I don't really agree that this make people ineffective. Misguided? Maybe.<p>Edit: fixed some spelling errors.
Sounds more like "7 habits of highly bored people" :) But in addition to word-playing with the title, why don't I also say something useful for a change.<p>Why is everyone so concerned with efficiency? One might say "that machine is efficient" or "this machine is not efficient". Why is that? Well, machines are created and owned by humans for a specific purpose -- a coffee-maker makes coffee; a CPU processes logical operations; a carriage horse drags around a cart full of spoiled rich humans :)<p>We can talk about efficiency of things we own but we can no longer own humans. In a civil society, humans are owners of services that they exchange under conditions of a free and fair market.<p>There, I said it. Now stop talking about efficiency of humans. Start creating efficient things that efficiently do all the things we hate so we can all be a bunch of lazy fucks :)
#1 should not be procrastination. It should be <i></i>"Bad Prioritization"<i></i> instead. This is because, procrastination in itself is not a bad thing; not only that, it's necessary and impossible to get around. We all procrastinate, because at any given moment we have a ton of tasks that we want/need to do and that we could do, but since we can't do them all at once, we have to <i>prioritize</i>. If we are bad at that, then we could become ineffective.
I've been trying something new for the past couple of weeks that seems to be working pretty well: throughout the day, I disable my internet connection by hitting the wifi button on my laptop.
Anything that causes you to use time, energy or money less efficiently generally contributes to one being less effective, successful or productive. I've built this element into a few of my game designs, where, for example, the player can acquire assets or skills which reduce the future time/energy/money cost of doing something worthwhile or necessary. So it's like an investment where the payoff is an accelerating factor on everything else the player wants to do.