What is Stress Management and Time Management Skills?

“Calmness is the cradle of power” by Josiah Gilbert Holland.

Stress is inevitable, because it can be caused by many regular activities in your life when you don’t give yourself a minute’s rest. Stress is your body’s response to unexpected life changes. Definite things can activate it, and mostly, stress can have serious health connections on your body. Although stress can’t be removed totally, there are some operative techniques through which stress can be managed. Causes of stress differ for each person, that’s why it is necessary to find out the source of the problem & learn to identify how stress can be managed. People can learn Stress Management & Time Management to lead healthier, happier lives.

Stress Management

Stress generates a feeling of insecurity & fear amid the employees. For example, a person can find him or herself cling in a stressful situation during a presentation, decision-making or any health problem. So, more the level of stress, lower is the performance. The effect of stress on the body results in a lack of sleep, irritation, constant anxiety & other health problems.

Stress at Workplace

Employee’s stress management is a growing issue for organizations today. Stress can be positive too, which exposes the best in individuals sometimes. This positive aspect of stress is called as enstress. But generally, the term stress has a negative implication & this negative aspect of stress is called as distress. So, we can say that “Stress causes some people to break & other to break records.”

What Drives Stress Management at Workplace?

1. Long working hours

• In my Opinion, the thing that negatively affect human health including working long hours in a week, having comparably low control over one’s job & job environment, facing family-to-work & work-to-family conflicts, and facing high job demands such as pressure to work fast.
• The primary driver of employee’s stress is long working hours. Longer work hours have become a token—a sign of how necessary & important, someone is. In the competition for promotions, work hours become one way of participating.
• You can say that working long hours has a correlation with a successful career. Remote work has only inflamed this problem. Work expands beyond the office. “One survey reported that 55 % said they logged in after 11 p.m., 81 % of respondents said they checked e-mail on the weekends & 59 % said they looked at e-mail while on vacation.”

2. Workplace/Colleagues politics

• Office politics resides at every company & sadly, in order to be successful at work, you have to involve with it a little bit. Acquaint yourself with the culture of the company. Get to know as many people as you can & spend time having lunch or talking to them in hallways.
• Build good affinity with them as these people can advocate for you, specifically when you’re being considered for promotions. Don’t participate in gossip. Be positive & true to yourself, and you will easily cross work politics.

Also read: Process Transformation – 5 Key Challenges In VUCA

Symptoms of Stress

Some of the symptoms of stress at workplace are as follows-

1. Running away from work responsibilities.
2. Declining work performance, memory loss, etc.
3. Collapsing health.
4. Over-reacting, getting irritated, arguing, anxiety, etc.
5. Decrease in Productivity.

A study shows that 10 % rise in overtime results in a 2.4 % decrease in productivity. The best number of work hours was about 48 per week. Below that number, output decreased correlatively with the decrease in hours worked. But once employees worked more than 48 hours, output began to fall.”

Importance of Stress Management

Stress not only modifies your mental state of mind but also have impact on your physical state of being. It distracts your power to think intelligently, work well & live in the moment. Either you change your mindset toward a certain thing that’s affecting your state of mind, or you try to change the situation.

Stress management helps in having control over the grip stress has on your life so that you can live a productive, healthier & happier lifestyle.

Ways for effective Stress Management

1. Optimism

Having a positive viewpoint on life can mentor you how to manage stress. With a positive viewpoint, you can maintain your mental & physical state of being healthy. A stressed situation can often lower your motivation to attain something. But when you start to believe in your own ability to do good by being optimistic, you can challenge the causes of stress.

Optimists are determined in what they want to obtain & don’t let the stress distract their ability to do so. Generally, people who have a positive viewpoint on life tend to have a greater capacity for tolerating stress than people who form a negative viewpoint on life because they end up believing in their ability to achieve good, without pursuing authentication from others.

Leader’s Tip
To handle stress and keep a healthy work-life balance, practise self-care, mindfulness, and seek support.

2. Interruptions

Almost everyone is flooded during the day by phone calls, Emails, pop ins, instant messages & sudden, acute deadlines plot to make today’s workers more hindered than ever. Although you may not have control over the interrupters, but you can control your response. You can respond in one of 3 ways: Take the interruption, cut it off, or inspect its importance & make a plan. 

Many interruptions are reoccuring & can be predicted. You want to have diagnosed criteria for which response you want to make. You can also coach those around you by replying email during certain windows, setting up office hours to talk in person or closing the door when you need to concentrate during transformation.

3. Take Action instead of Reaction

We experience stress when we feel that situations are uncontrollable. It triggers the stress hormone and, if persistent, run down concentration, confidence & well-being. Identify those sides of the situation you can control & sides you can’t. Generally, you’re in control of your actions & responses, but not in control of macro forces or someone else’s tone, for instance, “Be flawless for your 50%. And try to let go of the rest.

4. Schedule Your Day for Energy & Focus

Most of us go through the day using a “push, push, push” approach, thinking if we work 8 to 10 hours, we’ll get more done. Rather, productivity decreases, stress levels increases & you are left with little energy for your family. So take breaks in between, do a breathing exercise or stretch at your desk. It will help in stress management.

5. Calm Down Swiftly

“When you feel angry or irritated, it’s a heated emotion in your body that can cause you to react. Instead of sudden reactions & overreacting— trying a “cooling breath” technique: Breathe in through your mouth and then breathe out normally through your nose. It’s like striking the “pause” button, giving you time to think about your response. This is so powerful that it will also calm the other person down.

6. Be Your Own Best Observer

Some thousand thoughts flow through your mind each day & internal negativity is just as likely to stress you out as an external event. Rather than being savage & critical of yourself, try pumping yourself up. Inspiring thoughts will help motivate you to obtain & finally train you to encourage others.

7. Block Time

One key reason why management in an organization is stressful includes time. For someone who’s constantly multi-tasking there’s rarely enough of it. The most successful productivity strategy I ever found was time blocking – holding a period of time & consistently keeping it free from all calls, meetings, & miscellaneous interruptions. To make it available for whatever I most needed to work on. This helped me to catch up with things I knew were important but just weren’t getting done – and therefore a cause of stress. The amount of time you can block differs of course depending on your role & organization, but I highly recommend it as an easy productivity trick.

Time Management

Each & everyone has same 24-hours in a day. But why is it that some people are adequate to fully leverage every minute of the day? Believe it or not, they don’t have the power to slow down time. The answer resides in good time management. Falling deadlines, project slip & a to-do list that appears to get longer each day — these occurrences are all too common in both life & work. An individual should understand the value of time for him to triumph in all facets of life.

Managing your time efficiently can help you enhance in your career. Sorting each day helps you to finish work on time, give you space to be creative and energetic in your tasks & stay involved during important meetings. Having strong time-management skills can finally lead to attaining key goals & advancing in your position.

Time management is defined as the decision-making process that protects, shapes & regulates a person’s time to altering environmental conditions. It is the ability to use your time efficiently & productively. 3 particular skills differ time management success from failure:

• Realization: thinking sensibly about your time by grasping it is a finite resource.
• Arrangement: designing & organizing your plans, goals, schedules & tasks to efficiently use time.
• Alteration: inspecting your use of time while performing tasks, including adjusting to interruptions or changing priorities.

People who effectively manage their time are also good at prioritizing and working out what really requires doing—and then rejecting the other things. Prioritize tasks to concentrate on the ones that produces the greatest returns. Because they understand the difference between important & urgent. 

‘Urgent’ tasks need your instant observation, regardless of if you really give them that attention may or may not bother.

‘Important’ tasks bother & not performing them may have significant effects for you or others.

How to Optimize Time?

So many people talk about optimizing time, but mostly fail to implement a personalized strategy. First acknowledge the regular threats that fiercely cut your productivity & create stress. Then, generate daily rituals & routines that drive your attention towards productivity.

3 principles must be understood before you can start optimizing your time: 

• Time management is not only about productivity, but conscious productivity.
• Time management is relied on daily rituals that spin into habits.
• Time management is about both working & non-working hours.

Leader’s Tip
To improve time management, prioritise work, delegate where required, and plan a balanced schedule.

Time Management Skills

If you want to know how you can become an expert of time management?  Begin by using these powerful time management tips.

1. Prioritize your work

• Set your priorities.
• Make a “To Do” List.
• High priority tasks must be performed immediately.
• Tick off fulfilled tasks. It will fill you with a sense of relief & satisfaction.
• Be clear about your roles & responsibilities at the workplace.

2. Take holding of work

• Work for yourself. Don’t work only to show your boss. The dedication should be from within.
• Be responsible for your work & learn to accept your mistakes.
• If you have taken something, then complete it within the allotted time slot.

3. Be Disciplined & Punctual

• Being punctual helps you finish tasks in advance of deadline leading to efficient time management.
• Avoid taking so many leaves from work. This attitude is totally unprofessional.
• Complete your work on time. Don’t keep assignments pending.

4. Be a little Diplomatic

• Don’t take everything coming your way. A respectful “NO” in the starting will save your reputation later.
• The employees must be assigned responsibilities according to their skills & background. This way they will be more interested & finish work on time.

5. More Focused

• Be a little focused & concentrate on work. Do not waste time by gossiping around.
• Don’t take long personal calls at work. Finish off work & leave for the day on time. Then you will have enough time to chit chat with your friends.

Effective Time Management Tips

1. Create a time audit

The first step you need to take is finding out where your time actually goes. What are you doing? Was it time waste? Was it well spent? You may think that you only spend 30 minutes on emails, but in reality, that task is eating-up an hour of your day.

So, the easiest way to keep track of your time is to download an app like Toggl, Rescue Time, or my app Calendar to track everything you do for a week. Then you can retrieve a report to find out what’s stealing your time. With this information, you can then make the right adjustments during digital transformation.

2. Put down goals the right way

There’s a right & wrong way to set goals. If you set your goals the wrong way, then you’ll lack the real targets, which will leave you disoriented. But when you set them the right way, the sky is the limit. And when you set those goals, ensure you have deep down meanings for wanting to achieve them.

3. Define a time limit to each task

Setting a time limit to each task stops us from getting diverted. Suppose if I have to write an article, I give myself 3 hours. In this way, it becomes a game.

4. Spend your mornings on Most Important Tasks (MITs)

As Mark Twain said, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” Twain wanted to convey that do your biggest & most-challenging tasks in the morning, aka your most important tasks (MITs) of the day.

This is because you generally have the most amount of energy in the time management. Achieving those will give you the biggest momentum to help you float through the rest of the day.

5. Make distraction-free regions

The biggest enemies of modern focus are email & social media. When your email is pouring in, it’s easy to get distracted. Schedule time to read & respond to emails.

Social media is simple to control: keep notifications off & schedule a few periods a day to check social media on your free time. But stick to the time allotted for it.

6. Block daily time

My first task every morning is blocking time throughout my day. I prioritize important tasks first when I have the most focus & energy. Pick one exercise & only focus on that exercise.

7. Alter your schedule

For instance, instead of sleeping-in until 6:30am, wake-up an hour earlier. Personally, I find 5:15am to be the most productive time of the day since it gives me time to exercise, plan-out my day, go through my emails & even work on side projects without being distracted. Also, consider waking-up earlier on the weekends & maybe cut-down on the amount of TV that you watch.

8. Keep to the 80-20 rule

80-20 rule is the great time management tip. This rule is also known as Pareto Principle which suggests that 80% of results come from 20% of the effort. By using the principle, you can probably remove the majority of the items on your list.

9. Inculcate keystone habits

Keystone habits are habits that can modify your life, such as tracking what you eat, exercising, developing daily routines & meditating. Further, These habits replace bad habits & seek other good habits. Consequently, you’ll be more focused, healthier & better suited to manage your time.

10. Find inspiration

Turn to inspirational sources like a TED Talk or biography when you’re lacking inspiration. Seek ways that will reignite fire to get you motivated and back-on-track.

11. Take recurrent breaks between tasks & meetings

Shifting immediately from one task or meeting to the next may seem like a good use of your time, but it generally has the opposite effect. So, We need time to clear our minds & recharge by taking a walk or meditating. Without a break it’s more difficult to stay concentrated & motivated, especially in VUCA.

Final Word

To develop an understanding of how stress can be damaging not only to your professional career but your physical health, prepare the processes necessary to manage it. So, Develop a successful stress management technique to progress in life. A stressed situation can feel massive and can distract your ability to grow. That’s why it is essential to build a tolerance against it by having a positive life viewpoint, no matter what you are faced with, and also adapt flexibility.

May be the most important thing to remember is to stay calm. Moreover, Feeling submerged by various tasks can be very stressful. Remember that the world will not end if you fail to complete your last task of the day, or leave it until tomorrow, specifically if you have prioritized sensibly. So, Take a moment to pause & get your life & priorities into perspective, and you may find that the view changes quite fundamentally.

Read Also: Veda Leadership: 10 Strong Veda Lessons To Be A Transformational Leader 

FAQs

Key Takeaways

• Leaders who manage their time well may concentrate on important activities, make wise choices, and exercise effective leadership.
• Effectively managing stress encourages mental health, improves decision-making, and cultivates good team dynamics.
• Setting limits and giving self-care top priority are crucial for long-term leadership success and personal fulfilment.