Learn How You're Killing Your Career

This article is adapted from Prevention.com

You feel that you're a GREAT employee. You're always on time. You're polite to all the other staff members and colleagues. You don't sneak out early (okay - maybe occasionally). And most importantly, you MEET deadlines. 

Although these may be stellar qualities, it doesn't mean that you're in line for the next promotion. All your hard work might actually not pay off the way you expect them to.

Below are three ways in which you might be killing off your career.

1. You respond to e-mails right away.

Sounds like a good thing, right? Wrong. People who read e-mail at work change screens twice as often than those who don’t—that’s an average of 37 times an hour—which means that your attention’s bouncing back and forth like a beach ball, finds a recent University of California, Irvine, and US Army study. 

Not only does this make you less productive, but the habit keeps you in a steady “high alert” state, meaning your heart rate’s unnaturally elevated and your stress levels are higher. 

Solution: Take a vacation from your inbox. The same study found that employees who e-mailed less had increased productivity and had less stress. 

2. You work too much. 

Does this sound familiar? 

You…

        …think about how you can free up more time to work

        …make hobbies and exercise less of a priority than work

        …spend more time working than you initially intend 

        …work in order to reduce feelings of guilt and anxiety

        …have been told by others to cut down on work 

        …become stressed if you can’t work

        …work so much that it has negatively influenced your health 

If you answered “often” or “always” to at least four of these seven question, then you could be a workaholic, according to researchers from Norway and the UK who developed this work addiction scale. Countless studies show that overextending yourself at work can increase your risk for health problems, like insomnia and heart disease.

Solution: Leave work at the office. If the COO of Facebook can leave the office at 5:30 every day to get home in time for dinner—it’s true!—then what’s stopping you? Avoid taking work home with you, and if you must get something done at home, be sure to work in a designated workspace for a set amount of time. And consider scheduling in your downtime just like you schedule your worktime.  

3. Problem: You’re jealous of other women at work. 

This is a tough one to admit, isn’t it? But a new Spanish study finds that women who feel like they have to compete with other women for their male coworkers’ attention are more jealous of women they see as more attractive or powerful than themselves. Plus, sexes were found to be jealous of peers who have strong social skills.

Solution: Work those happy hours. It’s not easy coming out of your trusty shell, but it’s important to push yourself to make social connections anyway—for your career and your health.

Any comments? Muovo would like to hear from you!

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