Good Time Management is Stress Management
Many people who suffer stress at work look for stress management training when, in fact, they need time management training. Check out our Personal Effectiveness Training to boost your productivity and reduce stress.
People feel stressed when the load imposed upon them is greater than they can bear.
Excessive load on their mind and body is experienced as stress.
So, they seek stress counselling, but the root cause of their stress is a failure of time management.
Time Management
In management, there are three fundamental errors:
- There is too much to do.
- Doing too much.
- Doing the wrong things.
In situations where people have too much to do, are doing too much, or are doing the wrong things, the solution is prioritisation. Our Leadership and Management Training covers effective prioritisation strategies.
Prioritisation is the Answer to Stress
Prioritisation is the art of putting things in the right order.
There are three ways to prioritise tasks:
- By value - the value can be determined by the consequences if the task is not done.
- Deadline pressure - some things are urgent, others are not, so we do the urgent things first, even if they are difficult.
- Logical sequence - some things must be done before others. For example, you must put your socks on before your shoes. You put the bolt on after the washer. If you do the right things in the wrong order, then it's wrong and has to be redone.
Procrastination Causes Stress
Another feature of people who are stressed is that they are commonly procrastinators.
Procrastinators put off doing the things they don't want to do.
When things are put off, the job doesn't disappear; it simply goes rotten.
When they return to the rotten job, they feel stressed because it's late, it's in a bad state, and the deadline is up.
Then they complain they are stressed and blame the work they procrastinated on for months.
It's not stress being imposed; it's that people create the conditions that put them under stress by procrastinating and not correctly prioritising their tasks. Explore our People Management Skills Training to master stress-free task handling.
Conclusion
The solution to stress management is often to improve time management skills and to stop procrastinating.
Learn to prioritise.
Learn not to procrastinate.
And your stress will frequently disappear.
Prioritisation
Prioritisation is the work skill of putting jobs in the best order. It judges each job for worth, time limit and order need, places the most vital jobs first, follows clear rules so all can see why the order stands, and changes the list fast when new facts shift worth, urgency or links.
CG4D Definition
Context: Business
Genus: Process
- Ranks each job by worth, urgency and order need
- Assigns time and resources to the highest ranked jobs first
- Uses clear, shared rules so the order is easy to see and repeat
- Updates the order when worth, urgency or job links change
Article Summary
Work stress rarely comes from the work; it comes from tasks left unordered. Use time wisely: rank jobs by value, act before deadlines and stop procrastinating. When you control your hours, you control your pressure.