How I’ve Reduced Stress at Work
Within the last month, I have made some changes in my life to help reduce my stress by decreasing distractions and interruptions.
- I don’t pay much attention to Twitter anymore. I’ve gone from constantly checking my timeline throughout an entire day (so I didn’t miss a thing) to casually checking it every few days.
- I’ve disabled the majority of push notifications on my iPhone which has resulted in fewer interruptions at work. Of the ones still enabled, they’re almost all “badge only” which is passive when compared to a loud sound or pop-up.
- Along those same lines, I’ve switched my settings on my iPhone to manually check my email accounts. In other words, it’s not checking for new emails throughout the day, but only when I open the email application itself.
- I deleted my email archive at work. I had been keeping the majority of messages sent and received for the last 5 years, resulting in a gigabytes of data. I took a further step by configuring Outlook to permanently delete trashed and sent items that are over 60 days old, preventing the archive from building up again, but keeping enough email around just in case I need something.
- Instant messaging is now turned off at work. Most people don’t realize that interruptions are one of the best ways to kill productivity. The same thing goes for phone calls. So, if someone needs to talk to me, they should use email, which is what I’ve always preferred they do.
- I’ve returned to working one day at home every week. This has helped get me out of the office, which is a loud, distracting place. As much as I truly enjoy all of the people I work with, I also enjoy having a smaller “to do” list now that I am getting some more things done throughout the week.
- I’ve stopped trying to multitask. No one is actually good at it, no matter what they claim, especially me. I’m more productive by concentrating on one thing and doing it right the first time, as opposed to doing it wrong and having to waste time fixing it later. There’s also less stress because I’m not worried about a bunch of other tasks, except the one at hand.
These changes came about after recently reading a couple of books: Rework by Jason Fried and David Hansson; and, The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. They’re both excellent reads that I recommend to everyone.
By no means do these changes make me the most productive person. No one is perfect and I don’t care to be that person, anyway. I still enjoy chatting about non-work things with friends at the office, check Facebook and Google Reader when I have time, and still check my work email more often than I should. Yet, I feel less overall stress and that has resulted in better work.
