5 Ways to Minimize Stress at Work
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At some point or another, our jobs can become stressful and tiring. It’s just a fact. But if you’re not careful, work stress can filter into your life away from work and start to impact your physical, mental, and emotional health. Constantly feeling stuck in difficult situations, unable to get ahead in your workload, or feeling completely exhausted at the start of the workday are indicators that you are overstressed with work. However, there are ways to minimize your stress at work that will benefit you and your overall health.
When you are feeling overwhelmed with a mountain of tasks to tackle, it’s easy to become disorganized and feel completely scatterbrained. One of the first steps in reducing your stress is to prioritize and reorganize. Create a priority list of things that must get done that day. List them in order of importance and cross them off the list when they are completed. Creating a physical to-do list helps you tangibly track your progress and gives you the motivation to keep going when you see tasks crossed off. Maybe organizing for you looks like cleaning out your inbox and putting emails in their corresponding folders. Actually cleaning your work area and organizing your files can help put your mind at ease and clearly indicate where everything is. Learning how to prioritize instead of being caught up in a million different tasks takes time to learn, but can significantly reduce your stress.
Invest in self-care out of the office
Finding time to relax and focus on your well-being is crucial in reducing stress from work. Unwinding from work and self-care looks different to everyone, but the main goal is to get your mind off of your work responsibility when you’re clocked out and do something that takes care of you. Whether it’s reading a good book, cooking a meal at home, or hanging out with friends afterward, take the time you need to recharge and do something fun or relaxing that isn’t related to work.
Directly following our self-care tip is this: Get in the habit of NOT taking work home with you! We all do this sometimes, don’t we? We get behind at work and tell ourselves that we’ll do some work tonight to make up for it. Then guess what? By the time you’re finished, it’s time to go to bed and go straight back to work in the morning. This wears you out physically and mentally because you aren’t allowing time for rest. When you clock out for the day, leave everything at the office and rest. This includes the weekends! You only have two days to recuperate and recharge for the next week, use them! And come back to work the next week ready to work hard.
Multitasking has been viewed as one of the best ways to maximize time and is commonly thought of as a useful skill. However, multitasking creates more stress. Trying to answer an email while talking on the phone and trying to take notes on what they’re saying is simply unattainable and wreaks havoc on your sanity. Multitasking splits your focus and divides your attention in multiple ways, causing you to stress about a million different things at one time. Instead, prioritize what needs your immediate attention and set aside chunks of time for “deep work.” This focuses your brain on one task at a time and allows you to focus all your energy on completing that task. That way, you give each task 100% effort and each task gets completed, instead of having 5-10 tasks in progress.
Whether it’s with another coworker, your Life Success Coach (me:)), your supervisor, or a family member, when you’re feeling stressed out, one of the best ways to relieve it is to talk it out with someone. Share how you’re feeling at work and how it’s affecting you. If it’s a continual cycle of being stressed and overwhelmed constantly, take it to your supervisor and try to find a solution. Maybe asking for time off or taking that PTO is the best course of action. If you have a close friend nearby, carve out time to go get coffee once a week and talk about what’s been going on. Talking about your feelings and emotions with someone you trust takes off some of that burden and helps you look at your stress from a different perspective. Not reaching out for help or support and doing everything yourself is not healthy and can damage your mental and emotional state over time. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
I’m here to help, schedule a call with me and let’s work together to create your Intentional Life Success Plan both at work and at home.
Or, here is another way to get started, follow the below roadmap:
Step #1 - Complete the Mindset Quiz:
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Step #2 - Take the Mindset Reset Kick-Starter Mini-Course:
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Step #3 - Join the Mindset Reset 6-week Coaching Course:
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Step #4 - Connect via, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Create Your Best Life Group
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