There are countless perks to owning your business. But despite the fact that you get to see your plans come to fruition, there’s a lot more under the surface that can threaten to overwhelm you. Running a company means that you will inevitably be hit by setbacks, but the key is how you handle these setbacks. So, when there are bouts of workplace stress, what can you do to ensure that you don’t buckle under the pressure?
Be Organized
This is one of the simplest things that makes a massive difference. If you are organized, you are going to have far better control over the situation. Whether this is by having an appointment reminder app that keeps everything in one handy place or having a personal assistant organize everything for you, organization is going to stop you from feeling like everything is running away with you. When we are organized, we can get more done, but more importantly, we’re not going to feel as stressed.
Identify Your Stressors
We’re all different, and when we are experiencing workplace stress, it can be from a very specific source, but also, we have to recognize that when there are certain problems in business, we problem-solve these things effectively. It’s not easy to identify sources of stress, especially amongst the chaos. But taking a step back to look at key business problems will make a massive difference to how you can solve them now and tackle these issues if they arise in the future.
Problem-solving is such a vital skill, but we also need to look at the things that stress us out outside of the working environment. Because if we are glued to our business, we might find that there are external sources that cause stress. And tackling these is just as important. Because if we have family and loved ones at home, we have to focus on them as well, which is crucial for the next point.
Having a Solid Balance
It’s always about having that work-life balance in the correct ratio. When we do not have a balance in life, we are going to feel overwhelmed by the workload. It’s easy to say that you should stop as soon as you leave the office or turn the computer off, but it’s not as simple as that. We live in an age where our phone is constantly pinging, and we feel that we have just got to get ahead of the game. But this is why you need to tackle the most important tasks at the beginning of your workday.
Sometimes, we can find that after lunchtime we are lacking motivation. While partly this is due to the fact that we consume a lot of carbohydrates at lunch, if we are focused and tackle the biggest tasks first thing in the morning, and leave the afternoon for small admin-based tasks, it doesn’t just mean that we’ve completed the most important things at the beginning of the day, but by the time that we finish these boring tasks we are ready to shut the computer off. So if you really want to get that balance in life, it’s about making sure that you have the motivation to leave work as well!
Use the Tools That Help You Work Effectively
We now have so many tools at our disposal. While we can easily refer to tools like Slack and Evernote to make life easier in a work sense, there are also tools that can help you to be more productive in other, less obvious ways. If you find yourself easily distracted, it’s important to eliminate this. And so you will need to find the right tools that help you focus.
This is where something like binaural beats can be very effective. If you want to focus better, there are tools like My Noise, which play binaural beats, and can help you to focus on tasks, especially when you have that lack of motivation. You should also think about other ways to improve your focus outside of work, and these can be things like exercising, learning skills, and reading in general. But also think about your attitude to your workload.
You can accomplish the most important tasks early in the day but also think about productivity tools like the Pomodoro method. This is something that many organizations use and is a great way to build in breaks. It is so important to have break times, and we may feel that if “we snooze, we lose,” breaks can improve our productivity. Taking breaks can prevent decision fatigue, boost your productivity and creativity, and restore your motivation for long-term goals.
Say “No”
If you are looking to make your business a success, you might think you have to utilize every single opportunity that comes to you. However, this is not conducive to a long-term business strategy. You might think that you need to utilize every tool at your disposal to boost your business and stop it failing, but one of the biggest obstacles to your sense of stress is being a people pleaser.
Learning to say “no” is an important skill for any business person to learn and it will make you feel like you’ve done the right thing. Many freelancers suffer from this inability to say “no” because they think it will cause long-term repercussions. But saying “yes” to everything is going to increase your stress. You are going to burn out, and this will impact your business in the long term.
If you want to make a business effective, but also ensure your life is easier, remember that stress doesn’t have to be your default setting. There are so many ways to strengthen a company but if you think that being on call 24/7 is going to work wonders for the business in the long run, it will only demotivate and demoralize you in the meantime. Therefore, you will start to resent your business. Instead, work on making life easier and it will make running a business better, and more importantly, more fun!
