Work Rules

Habits are hard to change once they are formed. This is something I think about often at work, where all of us are susceptible to the worst habits, from surfing the web, to slouching at the desk, and communicating poorly in various ways.

Our standards at work tend to degrade over time. You wear the button up shirt with the new pants on the first day, but by the end of the first month, you're wearing that old polo with the pizza sauce stain.

I have found, though, that when you start in a new work environment, there's a blank slate. Everything can seem so new that all of your old habits are able to be rewired with relatively little effort. This is both good and bad, because you could also have habits worth keeping, like getting in early.

Over time, I've become increasingly conscious of my bad habits, as well as the good habits I admire in others. Each time I start in a new environment, I take that time to reinforce the behaviors I've come to desire. In its latest iteration, I've written down a list of "work rules" that I check each day. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Sit up straight
2. Don't check your phone
3. Don't check personal email
4. Communicate well
5. Dress well, be prepared
6. Listen more than you talk
7. Don't pretend to know something you don't
8. Check email sparsely
9. Be honest
10. Be decisive
11. Don't be envious of others

Numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10 fall into the category of things I admire in others that I lack. When I think about the best leaders I've known, both in the workplace and in my personal life, they all are decisive, listen more than they talk and never pretend to know things they don't.

The other rules fall into the more pessimistic category of inner demons I need to battle.

So far, this list has worked pretty well for me, but I'm only on week two. I have to expect that these will slip over time, since past performance in the best indicator for the future. But my plan for combatting the inevitable is to spend (roughly) a minute each day reading the rules and reflecting on them.

If this seems corny, keep this in mind: a large part of our identity as viewed by others is made up of the habits we form, whether consciously or not. Whatever we can do to reinforce the behaviors that we believe in, the more we determine our own identity.