1. Pay attention to stress signals
Your body and your psyche send out signals to tell you how stressful your life is right now. Pay attention to your “stress organ.” It could be your heart, your stomach, your neck or your back, but also your thoughts, feelings, concentration, optimism and mood. Thank these signals for giving you such reliable information about your stress levels. Your stress organs do this regardless of whether you listen to their signals or not.
2. Practice slowing down
Slow down precisely when you are under pressure. Pay attention to the stress signals and ask yourself what it means when your stomach, your head or your chronic back pain makes itself felt. There is a saying about slowing down that sounds paradoxical at first: “When you’re in a hurry, go slowly.”
3. Talk about your plans for prevention
Ideally, talk to a sympathetic, smart person about how you intend to reduce your stress load. That can help you check and validate your plans from an outside perspective. The art of telling someone about your plan involves listening to their responses and suggestions for improvement, and maybe letting what they say soak in for a while without commenting on it. Often, an insight will come up after a short delay.
4. Focus on one thing
Always focus on just one task, as fully as possible. In other words - No distractions, no multi-tasking, no “let me just write a text message.” You are only doing one task, and giving it your full concentration. Once that is done, you can go on to the next task. That’s the only way to conserve your strength and focus entirely on one issue. The result is a nice “flow experience” - even with completely mundane tasks, we are completely absorbed in what we are doing!
5. Create order
Create your own specific system of order for your work processes, for instance by always putting things back in the same place so you can find them quickly. At the same time, stay flexible in case something doesn’t go according to plan. For example, if you do need to set something down quickly, be sure to put it back in the right place again later. As long as order and flexibility complement each other, order will not become pedantic and flexibility will not lead to chaos. Order combined with flexibility makes your life easier, and is a good way to prevent stress.
6. Use to-do lists
Write down everything you want to do for the day. The list does not to be in order of priority at first - simply write down your ideas and the appointments on your calendar. Once the list is finished, start with the thing that is most urgent and most important for the day. Set a time frame for finishing the task. This is based on the paradoxical observance that each task takes exactly as much time as we give it. If that turns out not to be the case and you aren’t finished by the appointed time, you can either keep working on it at your own pace or review your work methods. If you finish earlier, that means you have time to take a break, organize your files, or start a new task early.
7. Identify stressful and beneficial factors
Clarify which internal and external parameters are stressful for your work, and which ones are beneficial. Internal and external factors set limits on how diligent we can be. The internal factors include work pace, ability to concentrate, hunger and thirst. External factors could be noise, interruptions, or the number of tasks that need to be done at once.
Take all these factors into consideration and and think about which beneficial internal conditions can help you move things forward quickly. Think about how you can protect or even develop these. Determine what beneficial external parameters you can create, for instance by intensifying your support, planning, and coordination with colleagues. Ask yourself how stressful factors can be limited or eliminated. Try to honestly assess which external conditions can in fact be changed and which ones cannot.
Don’t waste time or energy on parameters that cannot be changed right now. As the “Serenity Prayer” says - “God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”
8. Share with others
Talk to sympathetic people about your successes and failures. It can be helpful if someone shares your regrets and gives you useful tips for improvement. Your conversation partner will be happy about your successes, and you will be encouraged to keep following the path you have chosen. That increases your momentum and motivation.
9. Stay on the ball
Ingrained stress patterns will not change overnight. It can be helpful to keep a small journal on the daily measures you are taking to reduce stress. Make a note of any successes you achieve.
10. Find balance
Use the image of balance to evaluate your stress reduction efforts. Make it clear to yourself that the point is not to lead a low-stress, let alone stress-free, life. The goal is to balance stress and calmness. If you achieve this balance, it will improve not just your physical and mental well-being, but also your work quality and how you deal with others.
