1. Don’t procrastinate.
Organise your time use a schedule or planner for your tasks. Having unrealistic expectations for what you can do is setting yourself up for failure and ultimate illness through stress. Schedule your time and stick to it making sure the time allocated is the time you need. Think in steps. Take a large project and break it down into smaller steps. Then complete the smaller steps one-by-one. DO IT NOW. You will be happy when you go it finished in the end.
2. Get your priorities right.
Jobs are disposable, your health, friends and family are not. If you are expected to work long hours or unpredictable times it will, if not already, be taking its toll on you. Start looking to change. This includes looking for a different job.
3. Square peg – round hole?
If you like your employer but find the job is now too stressful or boring ask about tailoring the duties to match your skills. There is nothing worse than a ‘square peg in a round hole’. It can only cause stress. If you have been recently promoted and find the new job to too much to handle ask for a lateral transfer or a return to the old job. Don’t ‘put-up’ with a job that is too much as it will take its toll.
4. Throw it away.
Don’t let things accumulate. Take time to sort out what you need and in the rest in the B1N file – bin. Organise your desk or workspace as it will ease the sense of losing control that comes from too much clutter. “I know where everything is” You cry. Colleagues don’t and your mind is in disarray if your desk is anything to go by. Make a ‘to do’ list with a priority order and each task is complete cross it off.
5. Time out.
Avoid working around the clock. If you feel stress building up walk on by as the song goes. Walk away from stressful situations every twenty minutes or so. Stretch, walk around the block, sit and take some meditation time. Exercise does wonders for the psyche. Take a cup of tea or coffee, get away from the workstation. Also follow the ‘bio-clock’ and schedule the more difficult tasks during your hours of ‘peak time’ performance and concentration, the time you do things the best.