Work Place Stress

Another major problem at work that causes stress is
not allowing enough time to complete a project.

You set a deadline for a task but always seem to
finish it at the last minute. If this is a rule instead
of a once in a while occurrence, you may need to
examine why this is happening.

Many people like the feeling of the adrenaline rush
that comes from being busy, so they wait until the
last minute to rush and get the work done. This tight
time frame helps to motivate you to do your best
work and probably most of the time it works.

But when you encounter a problem, you become
stressed. Now the headache starts, you get anxious
and things start to go wrong. And Murray’s law kicks
in, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. How
could everything seem to get out of hand so
quickly?, you ask yourself. You didn’t leave enough
time for the unexpected.

If you encounter this problem often enough, you will
feel the toll on your health. By the end of the day,
you feel tired and irritable. You finally get home only
to take your frustration out on your spouse or other
family members.

Then the sleepless nights start. You are wound up
from work and your encounter with the family that
you can’t relax enough to fall asleep.

How can you prevent this from happening? Try to plan
your work with reasonable deadlines. Take a few
minutes at the beginning of the day and list what has
to be done and the time it usually takes to do them.

From the list, pick out the important ones, ones with
times limits such as morning or afternoon reports, you
do for the boss now, or things that are needed for
other projects. Plan the time to start and finish each
one. If you finish sooner than planned, start on the
next one or do one of the smaller time consuming
projects.

For the big projects, break them done into smaller
segments that can be done in short times each day.

Over a few days you will get everything done
without taking a large amount of time at once, and
you will be able to cope with the smaller problems
daily instead of suddenly being confront by a
seemingly overwhelming problem.

Keep a calendar to jot down when projects are due.
By checking your calendar every morning you will
avoid being surprised by something that is due. This
will help to reduce work place stress and leave you
calmer the rest of the day.

Managing your time and deadlines, are a small part
of working better and smarter. Reducing stress in
the work place is a good plan for your self health care.