3 Ways to Eliminate Stress from Your Day

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While Leigh is out enjoying one of her planned vacations, Rob is filling this week. Remember we talked about that a while back, planning your vacations a year out. Well she is off doing that, so Rob Inman is here to fill in and discuss 3 things you can do to be way more productive in your everyday life. These are strategies that really help, they help me and I know it helps Leigh and our team to get through the things we need to get through. 

The first one being, I want you to plan your hurdles and your struggles that you know, are going to be coming up in the next day of your work or your life, right, we all have things that pop up. They come into our life and they distract us from what we want to be doing. Maybe it's a tough phone call with a client or a family member. Maybe it's putting date night off, and it's really starting to push me and my partner is really asking me about that. And I've just been so busy, I haven't thought about it. Maybe it's a home project. Or maybe it's going to more of your kids soccer games or wrestling matches, or whatever it is. We need to identify what those things are in your world in the next day, so that you can have a plan, and if not, deal with them first thing, which is ideal, if you can deal them first thing and get them knocked out of the way in the morning. That's awesome. But a lot of tasks don't work that way, right? So what we need to do is make a plan to deal with them. If you have a tough conversation, for example, maybe roleplay that in your head, the morning or the night before your day starts so that you can really understand what that conversation is going to look like, and you are ready for it, and it's not going to stress you out as much. Also schedule it right.

We all say "I'll take care of it tomorrow. I'll take care of it tomorrow." Well, tomorrow turns in the next day and the next day and the next day. So, make sure you have a plan and you can deal with that situation a lot easier. It just makes it so much less stressful in your work day if you already know what you're going to do
about that right.

Number two, your workspace, make sure your workspace is conducive to what you
want your workday to look like right. Some people like to have tea on their desk, for example, me, I always have a Diet Mountain Dew on my desk, right, I make sure I have all of the necessary things I'm going to need throughout that day. Whether it's supplies for work, whether it's food, whatever it is, so that I don't have to keep getting up to go get something right. A lot of the time, what we do as people, we get up to go do something, it's really just more of a distraction to not do the project or whatever we're
supposed to be working on, right. And again, at the end of the day, it may feel good in the moment to go get up and get that drink, but at the end of the day, when you don't have that project done, it doesn't feel very good. Or now you've added more stress to the next day. Right? So, we want to make sure that you have everything you need to get as much done as possible without all the stress.

I really want you to get your workspace in the right way; make sure you have all the programs on your computer that you're going to need for that day, right. Make sure if you've got, maybe  it's a call list, maybe you've got meetings that you need to schedule with clients, right. Make sure you have that call list beforehand so you're not fumbling through your phone trying to get this number or that number. Whatever it is, make sure you have all of those things lined up. So that when you get to do them, you can do them quickly, efficiently, and again, without stress. That's a huge thing, if we can eliminate stress out of your daily work life. You'd be amazed for one how much more productive you are, and at how much less exhausted you are at the end of the day. When every task is a struggle or a fight to get it done you're exhausted by the end of the day. I know I am if I just have a whole bunch of items on my list that I'm just like struggling to get any one of them done. It just wears me out by the end of the day, and I don't have the energy that I want when I want to go play at the end of the day with my family. So, really identify what tools or things you're going to need throughout your day to be more productive.

Alright, number three, and this is one that gets overlooked all the time, and most people don't even realize they need to do it. We are all people that are trying to strive to be better, and the only way to do better is to reflect on what we've done. So at the end of your day, take 10 minutes and think even if you have to write it down, if you have a journal that's great, or just jot it down real quick on a piece of paper.

What were my big hurdles today?  

And why were they hard?

What made them hard?

Was it because I wasn't prepared?

Or was it just that hard of a task?

A lot of the time we'll find we just weren't that prepared for that task. We already have enough things that pop up in our day to pull us away and distract us or stress us out. So, if we're stressing ourselves out, before we even get started, we're already starting from behind, and that's not the goal. We want to be at the highest levels of productivity with the least amount of stress and not identifying things that really messed you up during the day, you're just going to repeat them down the road. So I really want you to sit down, reflect on your day, look at the things that hung you up. Was it a phone call you weren't prepared for? Was it an email that you just didn't have maybe a signature block on. Right? Now you have got to go in there and change the settings and do all that. Make sure you identify things that you can change to be better the next day or be more prepared the next day.

Alright guys, I really hope that these three tips have helped you. Leigh will be back next week. So, I hope this helps you. If not, comment below. If it did great. If it didn't, you know, you can eat me alive at the bottom. That's okay. Leigh will be back and everything will go back to normal. But until next time, guys, remember the
choice is always yours to Focus Forward. Have a great day!