Let’s get one thing straight. The world of business is a stressful one. There always seems like there is too much to get done, and there never seems to be enough time. While it is fine to feel stressed out from time to time, sometimes stress takes over your life. Stress can cause many health issues if it isn’t dealt with, and can negatively affect your work performance. There are many books and articles written on how to deal with it, but it hasn’t seemed to help remove it from our lives. Here are a couple of tips that ITC uses for eliminating stress at work.
Eliminate Stress by Managing Your Time
Possibly the easiest way to eliminate stress is to simply manage your time better. Start by making sure that before you start work on anything else, you have a game plan. Know what you’re going to be working on, what tasks you need to perform to get it done, and when it needs to be completed. When making these types of itineraries, it helps to make them in a checklist format, because a good way to motivate yourself to get things done is by checking off items you’ve completed on a list. You can use apps like Wunderlist to help you create a checklist life this.
Get Your Priorities Straight
We all have projects we need to work on. Some of these are more important than others, though. What helps to get rid of stress at work is to prioritize these projects. At ITC, we use an ABC system to help us organize our tasks. In a previous blog post, The ABCs of Time Management and Getting Things Done, we explain this system in detail. Getting your priorities straight helps you mitigate stress by focusing your mind on what’s most important. This will help you meet your deadlines and get things done quicker, which will melt your stress away.
Eliminate Distractions
While technology can be a valuable tool to help you work, it can also be distracting. The constant lure of the infinite distractions available to us on the internet often proves too much for even the most resilient of us. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all for getting rid of these, though. If you are finding your work to be constantly interrupted by something, you need to find a way to get rid of it. Ironically, there are some apps available that can help you get rid of distractions. Programs like Focus can help you become more productive by forcing your screen to only show what you are working on. This may help you cut out the irritating interruptions and focus on your work.
Stress can kill your productivity, forcing you into a dangerous cycle of not getting your work done. The tips listed here are the best ways that ITC has found to get rid of workplace anxiety, and improving your workplace performance. Try them out for yourself to see if they help you remove stress from your work day.