Many people who suffer stress at work look for stress management training when, in fact, they need time management training.
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:
1. There is too much to do.
2. Doing too much.
3. 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.
Prioritisation is the answer to stress.
Prioritisation is the art of putting things in the right order.
There are three ways to prioritise tasks:
1. By value - the value can be determined by the consequences if the task is not done.
2. Deadline pressure - some things are urgent, others are not, so we do the urgent things first, even if they are difficult.
3. 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.
The solution to stress management is often to improve time management skills and to stop procrastinating.
Learn to prioritise. (use this FREE Tool to Prioritise your work https://corporatecoachgroup.com/decision-making/by-priority)
Learn NOT to procrastinate.
And your stress will frequently disappear.
Prioritisation
In business, prioritisation is the process of arranging tasks so the most important, urgent or prerequisite actions come first. It matches limited time and energy to highest-value work, ensures you act on the top item before others, and lets you reorder the list when goals or deadlines change. Without these traits the act is not true prioritisation.
CG4D Definition
Context: Business
Genus: Process
- Orders tasks by value, urgency or logical dependence
- Allocates limited time and energy to the top-ranked items
- Directs action to highest priority while deferring or dropping lower ones
- Adjusts the order when goals, resources or deadlines change
Article Summary
Stress often stems from overloaded schedules, not faulty nerves; when you rank tasks by value, deadline and logic, then tackle them without delay, pressure drops, productivity rises and you discover that good time management is the best form of stress management.