It’s a typical day at the office. The phones are ringing. You hear people talking in the distance. Movement is going on around you nonstop. Then at a moment’s notice, your desk starts to light up.
You hear a ding from your phone.
A new email notification comes on your laptop.
You hear a knock on your office door, or the boss walks by your cubicle.
A meeting you have with your boss to review a project is 10 minutes away.
There are so many ways and causes of stress at work. Not just the sounds and noises around you. Just the day-to-day can get stressful. We all go through it every day in our lives, no matter the occupation.
Think of this as your wake-up call. You’re sitting here reading this blog for a reason. Take a moment to just stop for one moment. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Then do it two more times.
It’s ok. I’ll still be here.
Good. Doesn’t that moment you just got back for you feel a little bit better?
First thing’s first. You need to understand that in your life, emergencies do and will happen. You have to do your best to prepare and even protect yourself. Part of that is up to you understanding yourself and your responsibilities. The only way you can take care of things at work is for you to work. Working on yourself. So health is one big and overarching focus. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “Over time, continued strain on your body from stress may contribute to serious health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other illnesses, including mental disorders such as depression or anxiety.”
Understanding how dark the path stress can take you if not treated is worth taking to heart. What’s even crazier is that pressure can also create more of itself, and the main reason is that it affects your performance on what you do. You begin to make this giant stress monster that you feed with and grow by letting it survive.
You can defeat it. You have more power than you know. It all starts with you separating one huge thing. You need to focus your energy on things you can control versus something you have no control over. It can literally cut your stress in half. Here’s a guide so you can try to use it as a guide to help you see.
Make a quick list for yourself with the inspiration we’ve left here. What are some things you have control over? What are some things that you don’t? Once you have that down, you can help clear your mind with more ease. Help make better decisions for the things you do. In turn, helping reduce stress for yourself.
Now that you’re on the path to a better, less stressful, and more amazing you. We wanted to leave you with some great and simple ideas that you can use and aren’t hard to help you reduce your stress. All focused on the little technique we used earlier. Taking a pause for you to be better, live better, and work better.
Create Quiet Time
Are things getting hectic? Your mind isn’t helping you think of what to write or do next? Your focus is lost and gone. Then go and get it. Change up the scenery a bit. It can be as easy as taking a brief moment to walk and get yourself some water, coffee, or tea. Sometimes a little trip to an empty conference room just to find a quiet place to just ease your mind from the hustle and bustle going on around the office can help. Change things up a bit during your lunchtime, take a walk outside the office or workplace. Drive or walk to a park and enjoy your lunch there if you can freshen up your mind with a new environment.
The main focal point here is simply giving yourself some space from your work waiting for you back at your office, workshop, or even home (for those working remotely). This fresh perspective, this new scenery can help enrich your mind with new ideas. Countless studies are showing that taking a break can help you work more efficiently and be more creative.
Learn To Meditate
Meditation is a powerful tool that helps you practice your focus and help reduce your stress by clearing your mind and giving it room to reset. Just the mental and physical health benefits make it something worth trying. Think of it like this:
“Happier thoughts lead to essentially a happier biochemistry. A happier, healthier body. Negative thoughts and stress have been shown to seriously degrade the body and the functioning of the brain because it’s our thoughts and emotions that are continuously reassembling, reorganizing, re-creating our body.”
– Dr. John Hagelin
I’m not an expert. However, I’ve delved into meditation and have been enjoying the journey. Here are two great apps that I highly recommend worth taking a look at to learn about it and begin integrating meditation into your life.
- (iOS) Oak Meditation – https://www.oakmeditation.com/
- (iOS and Android) Insight Timer – https://insighttimer.com/
Organize Yourself
Getting a grip on your organization can help you reduce your stress because it relieves a lot of anxiety from your day. It allows easily find solutions, make better choices, and make your life less hectic. Some of us need to organize more than others. There’s always room for improvement in the productivity journey. An excellent way to get started is practicing getting more organized is by using tools to help you with that.
One big way is using a project management tool that helps you get big ideas or even something as small as a grocery list. You can put deadlines to get reminders along the way, make some tasks automatically recurring, and a whole lot more. Two great websites that let you use their project management tools for free and give you in-depth guides on how to be more productive with their software are:
Holding so much information in your mind can also make things stressful too. Keeping the information you received from your boss, spouse, or coworkers can easily get lost up there. Why not use technology to write it down. That way, you can’t forget it. Here are some tools that you can use for free that may already be on your device!
- Apple Notes (iOS)
- Google Keep (iOS & Android)
- If you want to go multi-platform with lots of features, I would highly recommend Evernote.
Some days can be rough to manage yourself and get things done. Especially if you are working from home, it can cause tons of stress. An excellent way to help keep your creativity, focus, and simply stress less is to use a technique to help your workday flow. The Pomodoro technique can help. It may be worth a try if you’ve been finding yourself getting drained or just not as creative throughout the day. Tons of people have implemented it into their lives and enjoy its effects. Even I use it when I feel myself getting anxious or stressed out when I need to get things done.
There are some apps that can help you get into the flow of it and make it easy to set and forget. The most interesting one I’ve discovered is Forest. You grow your little plant of accomplishment throughout the day, which gamify’s your workday a bit adding a little fun with the Pomodoro technique.
Just taking the chance to learn and recognize you need help is great to start improving your life overall. We hope taking the time to try some of these tips out will help make your workday a little less stressful and more enjoyable. Are there some tips you have? Maybe some apps we should check out? Drop them in the comments below!
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