What You’re Doing Wrong At Work

Think you're being a productive worker? Hitting all the right strides in order to enhance your career? Well, you may be making some critical mistakes on your journey to the top. Here's a list of just some things you may have backwards.

Getting in late. Even if you work the same number of hours as your early-riser colleagues, there tends to be a perception among bosses that people who arrive at the office earlier in the day are more productive and reliable. Call it a "morning bias" - which a recent study says is a real thing.

Checking your email first thing in the morning. Sounds efficient, we know, but it can tie you down and put you in stress mode, according to time management expert Julie Morgenstern. She tells the Huffington Post, "Those requests and those interruptions and those unexpected surprises and those reminders and problems are endless." Instead, Morgenstern recommends starting your day with an important task that requires focus and then moving on to more trivial matters like replying to emails. She adds, "There is very little that cannot wait a minimum of 59 minutes."

Speaking of emails, keep 'em short. We're talking five sentences or fewer. But be pleasant while you're being direct, because otherwise, your tone may come off as a bit rude. See what we just did here? Five sentences.

Sitting at your desk. We've got a lot to say about this one. A new study from the Olin Business School at Washington University shows that standing up while engaging in a group project makes workers more creative, more enthusiastic, less defensive of their ideas and more willing to collaborate than when they’re sitting down. What's more, Andrew Knight, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor at Washington University, says that, “if you work in a place where you’re standing up, you’re going to move more, and because of that, you’re going to become more physiologically activated. Your body is going to be 'on.'"

Right on. And up the corporate ladder, perhaps, as well.

Are any of these suggestions ones you'd take to heart?

What slows you down at the office. What enhances your work flow?