Tips to Manage Change and Stress at Work

We all respond differently to stress and change.   Most of us develop how we respond to these factors through specific life changing experiences that have occurred in our lives previously.   Some may see a major event of change as a burden; yet others may see it as an exciting challenge and find inspiration.  There are no set rules for dealing with stress and change.  Effective stress management is not easy and it usually takes time and practice.  Through examination of stress management challenges, we can develop some useful tips to help ease the effects of these factors.  Hopefully, once you think about your own situation and your own tendencies toward stress; you can apply the best strategies offered.

1.)   Set Realistic Goals and Allocate Time Effectively:  Realistic Goals should be achievable and should offer a clear route toward success.  Goals that are not attainable will bring the most stress and cause frustration and the feelings of failure.  Setting realistic goals will keep you in control and offer direction.  Also, scheduling more than you can handle is a great stress producer.  Saying “NO” to issues that will stretch your capacity beyond reality is an effective way to avoid the stress of spreading yourself too thin.  Proper allocation of your time toward each realistic goal will create a more manageable work plan.

2.)   Validate Meetings:  Validate and reconsider all meetings.  That may seem like a strong statement – but if you consider that a study by The Wall Street Journal revealed that managers wasted 80% of their time due to meetings which either did not begin or end on schedule.  Think of all the useful applications of that time.  This is a personal pet peeve of mine.  I used to attend daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings on a never ending basis and found very few of those meetings to be useful.  Far too often, meetings become a stage for egos to perform and seldom do they offer useful resolutions.  With all the technical advances we have achieved such as email and teleconferencing….are all these meetings really necessary?  Not to mention the expense of travel and logistics applied to offsite meetings.

3.)   Analyze… Before You Make Time Decisions: When you focus on the tasks at hand; do you handle the minimal tasks first or later?  Most of us do exactly that.  The sense of accomplishment we get from dealing with easy issues make us feel good – it is only natural.  But when we do this we create a delay in focusing on the more important matters and this causes stress.   Analyze the importance of each task and categorize them and allocate your time according to level of importance.   Many business people use the following categories to help them organize:

A.)   Not Urgent – Not Important

B.)   Urgent but Not Important

C.)   Not Urgent but Important

D.)   Urgent and Important

4.)   Stop Procrastinating – Easier said than done!  We all put off till tomorrow what should and can be done today.  This creates a great deal of stress as well.  There are three basic reasons why most business people procrastinate:  1.) They don’t know how to do the task.  2.) They don’t like to do the task.  3.) They feel indecisive about how to approach the task.  Procrastination may be alleviated by taking a large task and breaking it up into smaller more manageable tasks.  Make a list of every task and update and prioritize them daily.  Fight the urge to put things off and your day will be less stressful.