Tips on Making Your Job Less Stressful This Year

Tips on Making Your Job Less Stressful This Year

While many individuals use the new year to begin eating healthier, exercising more, or drinking more water, productivity gurus believe it is also a good time to reset at work.

According to experts, the start of the new year provides workers with a reference point from which they can analyze what went well, what went poorly, and what they want in the future in order to build a strategy for improvement. They believe it is just as vital, if not more important, than setting personal health objectives because most people spend the bulk of their waking hours at work.

Here are 13 ways that employees may set themselves up for success at the start of the year.

Reestablish your limits. According to Luk, the epidemic has blurred the barriers between work and home life in recent years, so now could be a good opportunity to strengthen boundaries, which might include anything from ensuring you have a designated workplace to recognizing when work should and should not be done in your calendar.

"Share your objectives and boundaries with people," he said. "Say, 'If you catch me online at 7 p.m., kick me off.'" Others will hold you to account."

Outline your objectives. According to Akhila Satish, CEO of Meseekna, a software business that employs simulations to help in talent evaluation, one method to think about your objectives is to recall what you've done and relate it to what you want to do in the future. Try to make your goals as actionable as possible with short time constraints, she said. Anita Williams Woolley, professor and assistant dean of research at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, suggested gathering input. She also recommends devoting some time each day or week to reviewing your actions and aligning them with your goals.

Examine your priorities. What's urgent may not necessarily be significant, according to Woolley, so make sure you understand your priorities. After that, you may plan out exactly what you want to accomplish and repeat until you've formed new habits. This might take the form of adding calendar items to block out time to focus on certain projects. "Pay attention to what is essential," she said. "Don't allow them be sidetracked by unimportant, essential matters."

Intentions must be communicated. Experts advise making your commitments and objectives for the year known. Sharing your ideas may be beneficial to the rest of your team, who may have suggestions or need to change their expectations. "It may minimize the amount of things that may derail you," Woolley said. "And making a public pledge makes you more likely to follow through."

Assess your productivity. Examine your calendar to see when you were most and least productive, said Satish. It may indicate patterns in when you're most and least productive, allowing you to plan future meetings and concentrate periods accordingly. You should also consider whether calendar things are worth retaining, according to Luk. Zerkel suggests evaluating regular meetings to reduce, cancel, or convert them into emails or other kinds of communication. "It turns out that most employees could reduce 25% of what they do without affecting productivity," Harry Kraemer, clinical professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, stated. "Somethings we do simply because that's how we've always done them."

Find your center. Consider how you spend the 168 hours you have each week, said Kraemer. Divide your time into six categories: career and continuing education, family and friends, spiritual and religious viewpoints, health, fun, and social duty. Then, he says, compare it to how much time you actually spend and adapt appropriately. "We have this odd sense of multitasking," he explained. "But have we mixed up activity with productivity?"

Make use of digital technologies. Saving time might be as simple as copying and pasting a frequently used email message from your laptop's notepad, according to Satish. Is there anything more you can do to optimize your workflow by digitizing tiny tasks? According to Zerkel, you may even need to minimize your digital tool set to be more successful. Instead of working from your email, there may be a work management system that is better appropriate for teams to utilize on certain projects where they may wish to interact, exchange resources, or establish deadlines.

Make plans for vacation. Start arranging your vacation time immediately, even if it's only a rough estimate, Luk recommended. If you know you want to go to the beach this summer, choose a few of weekends and note them on your calendar to ensure you don't forget to plan. You may then strengthen your plans as you get closer. "You're not going to get it done unless you at least write it down," he added.

Reconnect with others. Satish believes that the new year is an excellent opportunity to reconnect with your professional network. So set aside some time to go out to previous mentors and contacts. "It's difficult during the year," she said. "However, it's quite simple to re-engage with a happy new year message."

Refresh your résumé. According to Satish, the beginning of the year is a wonderful time to update your résumé and personal websites or profiles. "You never know when you'll need it."

Modify your alerts. If you've been using the default notification settings on your devices and applications, you've undoubtedly been bombarded with distractions all day, according to Zerkel. Satish recommends using concentrate and work mode settings on iPhones and Android smartphones to filter out noise when working. On iOS, you can also set time limitations for each app under Screen Time. Woolley suggests turning off your email or switching off your Slack or Teams notifications for focused time.

Organize and save. According to experts, you should manage not only your physical office but also your digital workspace. This includes cleaning up your desktop, relocating icons for programs or documents you use frequently to more handy locations, archiving projects, and organizing your email, according to Woolley. "Clear away the crud so you can get to the crucial stuff," Zerkel said. "It could help you feel better."

Make a head start. Spend the first 15 minutes of your day or week reading through your inbox, schedule, and other messages and building a priority list for vital tasks, according to Zerkel.

"By allowing yourself a little space at the start of each day, you can put yourself back in the driver's seat," he stated.

Source: Tips on Making Your Job Less Stressful This Year