February 15th 2007 
Personal Development 
8 comments
In today’s society stress is an ever present problem that’s only going to get worse as we are increasingly expected on a personal and professional level to do more with less. Work more hours and get more done for less pay and in less time. That’s a depressing shift in our lives and it shows no signs of changing any time soon. As a consequence we have to develop ways of reducing that stress. Below I’ve detailed my top ten suggestions for doing just that.
- Make sure your home is organized and tidy. Its old fashioned but the saying “a place for everything and everything in its place” is so true because that way you won’t lose anything or have to worry about finding stuff. After a stressful day, you don’t want to have to come back to a cluttered house. Create a cleaning rota to keep everything tidy, and be sure to regularly de-clutter. Also, check out Real Simple and Life Organizers for house tidying tips.
- Give yourself around ten to fifteen minutes extra time for appointments, interviews, getting to work, etc. That way you are less likely to be stressed out at the prospect of delays. Move your clock forward by ten minutes to guarantee you arrive early or you can even try out the procrastination clock by David Seah that runs randomly fast by up to fifteen minutes (the trick is you never know exactly how fast it is). Make sure you have everything related to the schedule prepared beforehand too.
- Hang around with the right people and go to the right places. Those that always worry or are always late will have an influence on your your stress levels and time keeping. Likewise, places that make you feel anxious should be avoided where possible as well. Learn to know what you like and don’t like, what works for you and what doesn’t.
- Be prepared to show patience and wait for things. Have a book, magazine, notepad or music player handy to keep yourself occupied during those times when you are stuck in a queue or waiting for a meeting. Turn it into something constructive.
- Write down stuff you have to remember, don’t just rely on your memory (if you are following the GTD methodology, you will probably already have tools like a calendar and tickler file in place) because it’s a guarantee that you will forget something important at some point.
- Know how you are going to use your time. It is stress-inducing to blindly run into your day without knowing what you are going to do and when you are going to do it. Create a next actions list for each day, or even more specifically have a breakdown of your time and how you intend to use it.
- Don’t spread yourself too thin. Having too many jobs to do is not conducive to peace of mind. It also means that you can’t put enough effort into each job as you have to spread your time out more. As a consequence it then takes longer to get things completed which means they linger on your mind for longer.
- Sign up to a gym/spa. Exercise is great for releasing tension, pent up energy and as a general mood booster. Healthy body, healthy mind. If your gym also has a spa section with swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna etc thats great too as they help you to relax and clear your head of worries.
- Have activities and hobbies available to you that are fun and take you away from the day-to-day grind. They keep your mind occupied on what you are doing and not on whatever other worries you have. For instance, I recently brought a Nintendo Wii and I like to play on that as a distraction, but you can also have a collection of films ready to watch, some TV shows scheduled or maybe some recipes you would like to cook.
- Get plenty of sleep. It keeps your body and mind in top shape and when that’s in top form you are more able to deal with all the stresses and worries. If you are always tired all your problems get amplified.
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