Build These Work Habits to Increase Business Success

It’s never too late to be who you might have been.

It really is never too late for reinventing yourself, is it? Or looking for ways to improve work habits. If you believe otherwise, you may want to consider hanging it up. Knowing yourself is the key to undertaking life success lessons, isn’t it?

Are you aware of the impact of awesome habits for success and positive thinking on your personal development? But how to best build these habits and this positive attitude is another matter, isn’t it?

How you ever used checklists to improve your productivity … or perhaps your positive mental thinking? How well did they work for you?

We often use checklists to achieve our goal to refresh and reinforce habits and attitudes critical to our success and ability to see opportunity in every difficulty.

Related: 10 Life Lessons You Need to Learn Early

After college, I spent almost 2 years of training as a naval aviator. An important element of that training was the use of checklists in the learning and refresher process. Checklist utilization remains an important part of my business life. It is always a good idea to have a helpful checklist for reminders of improvements for your business or your personal life.

You will perhaps have heard this very old story illustrating the difference between positive and negative thinking:

Many years ago two salesmen were sent by a British shoe manufacturer to Africa to investigate and report back on market potential.

The first salesman reported back, “There is no potential here — nobody wears shoes.”

The second salesman reported back, “There is massive potential here — nobody wears shoes.”

This simple short story provides one of the best examples of how a single situation may be viewed in two quite different ways — negatively or positively. And it is not difficult to see which one you want, eh?

I keep a stack of 10 or so checklists that I rotate and update occasionally. I pull out one checklist to read and contemplate for 5–10 minutes as a way to start each day. I find it puts my thinking in the right frame of mind.

Here is one checklist example of simple reminders to improve the odds of success in any task that I or my team may be doing:

Arrive early

Always come in early (at least 15 minutes). Getting organized for your day’s priorities will help your performance as well as your reputation.

Speak up

Listen well, but always be thinking of adding your opinions and value to the team.

Single-task

Select 1 major project to focus on each day. Keep other smaller efforts to a minimum.

Play to strengths

Select tasks that play to your strengths as much as you can. Delegate tasks related to your weaknesses to someone with strengths in those areas.

Networking

Never be done with your networking efforts, and it takes lots of effort and persistence. To build relationships, keep in touch with friends in meaningful ways.

Attention

Pay attention to things like stress which impact your attention and concentration. Avoid multitasking and take short breaks every hour to two hours.

Take a real lunch

Make time for a real lunch, where you should avoid business topics. Go to lunch with different people, preferably ones with whom you are building relationships.

Find things to make you laugh

Don’t take things too seriously … find time for smiles and a little laughter. Learn to laugh at your own mistakes.

Your estimates

Pay attention to your estimates and avoid being aggressive at all cost. Estimate with success in mind. This is a hard one to learn as it will usually not be in your total control.

Note accomplishments

Always pay attention to how well you are doing against your goals and accomplishments. Take note of accomplishments at the end of each day.

Key takeaways

As I examine these lessons at the tail end of my career, it is easy to recognize how little I thought about most of them through at least the mid-career timeframe. And, of course, I wish I had. From my personal perspective, I was most vulnerable to the lessons of networking, attention, laughter, and estimating. I should have spent a lot more time on these lessons.

What about you?

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.