Stress prevents productivity, which is why you need to learn how to manage your stress levels in order to become more productive. Stress is self-imagined, self-imposed, and self-created; Which means you basically create your own stress and therefore you’re the one that’s preventing yourself from getting things done.
Stress is an unhealthy emotion that wastes too much of your energy. Instead, you should be focusing all that energy on the task at hand. Stress only becomes as powerful as you allow it to (at least that’s what Yoda told me). An emotion like stress can derail your day and control your actions, but it doesn’t have to; by stopping and addressing the issue once it starts, you’ll be a lot more likely to spend your day actually getting things done instead of just stressing over getting things done.
1. Get Caught Up to Stress Less
It won’t be easy to concentrate on what needs to get done today if you’re stressed about things that didn’t get done yesterday. Instead of letting the unfinished tasks daunt your mind, be more productive with your time and focus on completing them rather than worrying about them. If you’re behind on your list of things to do, getting caught up will offer some relief and you’ll find yourself not stressing out so much. Stress isn’t going to get things done for you, no matter how much energy you put in to it.
2. Give Yourself More Time and Take Breaks
Unless it’s absolutely crucial for you to get something done by a certain time, don’t give yourself strict deadlines that’s not easily manageable; Doing so will cause you to stress out about getting the project done on time and you’ll be in constant worry as you repeatedly glance at the clock to see how much time you have left. While this may cause you to work faster to get things done, it’s not likely you’re actually putting in the quality work that’s needed if you’re simply speeding through the task because you’re fueled by a deadline you’re stressing over.
If you are at work on a task under a strict deadline or you simply find yourself getting worked up over completing a task, you’ll find it beneficial if you just step away for about 5 or 10 minutes and take a breather. Use that five or ten minutes to calm yourself, rest, get some fresh air, etc, and you’ll have a clearer head when you return back to the task which will allow you to work more efficiently.
3. Don’t Do It All Yourself
If you are under a strict deadline or you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by completing the task, you should ask for help if you need it. Everyone needs help at some point and having an extra set of hands to help won’t feel as overwhelming as if you were doing it by yourself. With help, you’ll be twice as productive and you’ll worry less about meeting that deadline now that you have someone helping you. If you know that you can’t do the task yourself, you shouldn’t push yourself; Doing so is only going to cause more stress and diminish the quality of work you’re producing even further.
4. Get Some Perspective on Your Task
Becoming more productive in your day to day life can be accomplished by realizing what’s important and what’s not important because you’re likely spending a lot of your time stressing over things that are not that important in the big picture. A lot of the things that people stress over are actually not as significant as they would like to think they are; Unless something is going to do you bodily harm, then it’s probably not worth mentally upsetting yourself over it. Keeping a positive attitude as you start the day, dive into your tasks, and tackle everything that needs to be done can deter you from getting sidetracked and wasting time on stressing over insignificant things. Method 5 will explain a way for you to figure out if what you’re stressing over has any actual significance at all or not.
5. Focus on Your Stress and Confront It
Sometimes focusing on your stress can be a good thing, if you’re trying to figure out how to better handle it that is. If trying to avoid stress isn’t as much of a successful method as you would like it to be, you could be productive through your stress and write down what it is that’s making you feel that way so you can confront it. In addition to writing down what stresses you out, also write down what’s the worst that can possibly happen. This will allow you to be able to look at back at what you wrote at a later time and see for yourself whether or not what you were stressing over was actually something significant. Usually, things end up not being as bad as they seem once you remove yourself from the situation and get a clearer head when looking at things.
Stress can ruin your life, but it only will if you let it. By learning to maintain your stress, you can become more productive, be happier, and learn how to look at the bigger picture of things. While it’s natural to feel some extent of stress when it comes to some things in life; Stress shouldn’t dominate your day. When you notice that it has, that’s when you know you have a problem. When you feel yourself about to start stressing, stop and address it. Put things in perspective, let the insignificant things go, and start getting more done everyday.
Featured photo credit: Giuseppe Savo via flickr.com
