work habits

From how fast you respond to email to being the office grump, your work habits affect how people see you. Here’s advice on mastering the right habits.

I’m a terrible procrastinator

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I’ve recently realized something about myself: even though I am a high perfomer with glowing reviews from bosses and coworkers, I am a terrible procrastinator. But instead of procrastinating by doing nothing, I find other things that is of lesser importance but still need doing. […]

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how can I shut down gossip at work?

A reader writes: I like my job and my coworkers, but there’s one thing that keeps bugging me: There’s a real culture of gossiping, and I keep getting sucked into it. I used to be a huge gossiper myself, but at a previous job I was the target of some untrue and hurtful gossip, and […]

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is it rude to read in the car on work trips?

A reader writes: For my job, I often travel five to eight hours in a car to get to a destination. I have been a field scientist and now work for a five-state program so I have hundreds of hours of experience of driving with coworkers. An unspoken rule seems to be you talk to […]

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can I discuss NSFW shows at work?

A reader writes: In this age of streaming, it seems like every show I watch is very, very R-rated. I feel a little uncomfortable talking about these shows during normal coworker chit-chat about what everyone has been watching lately. I wondering how best to navigate these conversations. Here are two specific examples that I felt […]

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is working from an armchair hurting my credibility?

A reader writes: Since starting my first work-from-home job last year, I’ve noticed the unexpected perk that being able to work from an armchair, recliner, or my couch has SIGNIFICANTLY reduced chronic pain from an old injury because I’m able to support my body in ways that a desk chair doesn’t allow. My concern is […]

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I feel overwhelming guilt about taking time off work

A reader writes: I genuinely don’t understand how folks deal with the overwhelming guilt of taking time off work. I’ve had this problem since I started working right out of college, and it’s persisted through multiple job and industry changes and multiple PTO policies — from seven days to unlimited — in my over 15 […]

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mistakes at work: a round-up

Here’s a round-up of posts about mistakes at work. what to do when you make a mistake at work you made a mistake at work — now what? how do I recover from a huge, fireable mistake at work? how do I handle a serious mistake on my self-evaluation? how big of a deal are […]

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