Reducing Stress at the Office
21 May 2013
Read by 1834 persons
The workplace is all about action, production, performance… and therefore, inevitable pressure. Learning to manage stress and organize yourself more efficiently is a necessity.
To effectively manage your activity, there are many methods and tools, which we have often discussed, such as:
- Making priority lists,
- Automating certain tasks,
- Focusing on tasks with visible results,
- Avoiding intellectual distraction,
- Putting your phone on answering machine,
- Closing your email and opening it only a specific number of times a day,
- Only attending essential meetings,
Etc…
However, this proves insufficient to cope with an excessive workload.
Here are some additional tips to avoid being overwhelmed by stress…
1. Prioritize your To-do-list and know your Not-to-do-list.
Start by making a list of what you absolutely must do and that constitutes the essence of your mission. This will allow you to mentally draw a clear picture of what is not necessary to do immediately, and especially of your Not-to-do-list, the latter being a compilation of your "bad habits" and what you should not do because it unnecessarily delays you.
Then, quickly make a list of tasks that you do regularly but that slow down and diminish your performance because they are not your responsibility but that you have agreed to do out of kindness. There are also those that take up your time and have no positive effect on your work, such as watering the office plants, or systematically having to write meeting minutes. Be careful here not to confuse tasks you don't like doing with those that are not effective.
Well-managed, these lists will allow you to update a free slot of at least 30 minutes that can be reallocated to your priority work.
Remember not to make too abrupt changes that would be badly received and misunderstood or that could have negative consequences on your work in the medium term.
In the same spirit, clearly explain to your colleagues and managers why you are making this slight reorganization: the desire to focus on more important tasks.
However, don't lose sight of the fact that you need to know how to enjoy yourself from time to time and not put too much pressure on yourself, as this quickly leads to a loss of motivation.
2. Work Smart.
-Knowing how to question your way of working and your tools is also a way to increase your efficiency and therefore reduce your stress. Regarding your way of working, you sometimes need to change your procedures to take into account the evolution of your activity or the economic environment.
- Remember to leave time available to manage unforeseen events. Indeed, if you have over-optimized your schedule, you will see stress reappear in the event of unforeseen events.
- Consider practicing "recovery" for repetitive and/or similar tasks: for example, reusing PowerPoint slides from a previous meeting, using the same support twice to avoid having to redo a lot of work, asking colleagues if they don't have an archive with this type of work, searching for already delivered data on the Internet…
- End the culture of immediacy: it is not necessary to respond within a minute or an hour to your emails, chats, and phone calls.
- Don't try to do everything yourself: know how to delegate effectively, don't insist on centralizing and validating everything, call on a service provider or intern from time to time, and remember that the qualitative difference you will lose will be compensated by the time you will gain.
- Think carefully about what is requested so that you don't have to do the requested work more than once. Take the time to understand the purpose of the mission and don't rush headlong into the execution without being certain that it responds very precisely to the initial request.
Article written by The ReKrute.com team
To effectively manage your activity, there are many methods and tools, which we have often discussed, such as:
- Making priority lists,
- Automating certain tasks,
- Focusing on tasks with visible results,
- Avoiding intellectual distraction,
- Putting your phone on answering machine,
- Closing your email and opening it only a specific number of times a day,
- Only attending essential meetings,
Etc…
However, this proves insufficient to cope with an excessive workload.
Here are some additional tips to avoid being overwhelmed by stress…
1. Prioritize your To-do-list and know your Not-to-do-list.
Start by making a list of what you absolutely must do and that constitutes the essence of your mission. This will allow you to mentally draw a clear picture of what is not necessary to do immediately, and especially of your Not-to-do-list, the latter being a compilation of your "bad habits" and what you should not do because it unnecessarily delays you.
Then, quickly make a list of tasks that you do regularly but that slow down and diminish your performance because they are not your responsibility but that you have agreed to do out of kindness. There are also those that take up your time and have no positive effect on your work, such as watering the office plants, or systematically having to write meeting minutes. Be careful here not to confuse tasks you don't like doing with those that are not effective.
Well-managed, these lists will allow you to update a free slot of at least 30 minutes that can be reallocated to your priority work.
Remember not to make too abrupt changes that would be badly received and misunderstood or that could have negative consequences on your work in the medium term.
In the same spirit, clearly explain to your colleagues and managers why you are making this slight reorganization: the desire to focus on more important tasks.
However, don't lose sight of the fact that you need to know how to enjoy yourself from time to time and not put too much pressure on yourself, as this quickly leads to a loss of motivation.
2. Work Smart.
-Knowing how to question your way of working and your tools is also a way to increase your efficiency and therefore reduce your stress. Regarding your way of working, you sometimes need to change your procedures to take into account the evolution of your activity or the economic environment.
- Remember to leave time available to manage unforeseen events. Indeed, if you have over-optimized your schedule, you will see stress reappear in the event of unforeseen events.
- Consider practicing "recovery" for repetitive and/or similar tasks: for example, reusing PowerPoint slides from a previous meeting, using the same support twice to avoid having to redo a lot of work, asking colleagues if they don't have an archive with this type of work, searching for already delivered data on the Internet…
- End the culture of immediacy: it is not necessary to respond within a minute or an hour to your emails, chats, and phone calls.
- Don't try to do everything yourself: know how to delegate effectively, don't insist on centralizing and validating everything, call on a service provider or intern from time to time, and remember that the qualitative difference you will lose will be compensated by the time you will gain.
- Think carefully about what is requested so that you don't have to do the requested work more than once. Take the time to understand the purpose of the mission and don't rush headlong into the execution without being certain that it responds very precisely to the initial request.
Article written by The ReKrute.com team
