Is it stress o’clock again? How to manage time better
If time management is a constant worry, don’t freeze, don’t panic. These hacks will keep you ticking
Guess what? Stress isn’t new. Back in the 1970s, it was already a pesky enough problem that Karl Albrecht, management consultant and author, had enough information to fill a whole book. Stress and the Manager (1979) helpfully broke down the anxious panic into four categories. Time stress was a preoccupation with deadlines and workloads. Encounter stress was triggered by meetings, having to interact and face other people. Anticipatory stress essentially drew from an uncertain future. Situational stress was the unplanned type, when one can’t find a way out.
The good news: Knowing exactly what’s stressing someone out often calms them immediately. The better news: Time stress is the most common. The even better news: There are several ways to deal with it. High-performance coach Aditi Surana (@AditiSurana) has an organised tray of hacks to conquer the clock.
First, just take a minute. All tasks take time. No schedule is foolproof. “But if there’s a persistent feeling of not being able to complete them within a timeframe. That’s time stress.” says Surana. Most humans tend to freeze when a workload piles up – too much laundry, too many meetings, too many unread emails – causing further delay. “During times where one feels like there’s a lot on their plate, they get overwhelmed. It creates helplessness, and the stress hormone gets activated,” says Surana. This is where breaking down a big task into smaller, more digestible ones, helps. Five emails are easier to address than 20; running a wash cycle just for the sheets makes a dent in the pile; spacing meetings over the day seems easier than taking them on back-to-back.
{{/usCountry}}First, just take a minute. All tasks take time. No schedule is foolproof. “But if there’s a persistent feeling of not being able to complete them within a timeframe. That’s time stress.” says Surana. Most humans tend to freeze when a workload piles up – too much laundry, too many meetings, too many unread emails – causing further delay. “During times where one feels like there’s a lot on their plate, they get overwhelmed. It creates helplessness, and the stress hormone gets activated,” says Surana. This is where breaking down a big task into smaller, more digestible ones, helps. Five emails are easier to address than 20; running a wash cycle just for the sheets makes a dent in the pile; spacing meetings over the day seems easier than taking them on back-to-back.
{{/usCountry}}Think inside the box. Time boxing is just a fancy way of externalising all the internal turmoil. “Gather all of your tasks in one list. Keeping it all in your head will only add to the stress,” says Surana. “Block the time needed for each task, chalking in distractions in case you have trouble focusing. Remember, if there is deep focus, the work can be done within half the time allocated for it.” she says.
Don’t be Einstein. Time is relative, but that won’t help when deadlines whoosh past. “A simple adage that helps unfreeze the mind is, ‘Done is better than perfect’,” says Surana. “One way to jump into action is to gameify the to-do list,” says Surana. Complete the most boring stuff in the first hour, so the easier tasks are the reward. Or clear out the back-end side of work early if you enjoy interactions and vice versa. Surana adds that it is important to build up one’s stress appetite. It simply means not falling apart at the first sign of disaster, and getting used to the fact that plot twists are part of life. “It makes people more time sensitive,” she says. They learn to make the most of fallow hours and prep for storms that may never arrive.
Tick, tick, boom! Six hours left and six tasks to do? Most people see it as one task per hour. Smart people prioritise what needs to be done first, which tasks will get more complicated if there’s a delay, and which work can be started now and completed in a calmer moment later. “Accept the fact that not everything is in your control,” Surana says. “Look at it beyond deadlines and commitments and try not to take control of the entire day, or you will be disappointed.”
Take the rear view. A task completed can still teach us new things. “Review tasks to see what could have been done better or faster,” Surana says. A new pileup in probably only a day away. Why repeat mistakes for more stress?
