Stress Management: 10 Common Sources of Stress on the Job and What to Do
Dear lilioftheworld.com reader, here is Dimo, your co-editor. We continue our Active Life section with a topic, which plays significant part in our work life. Namely stress management on the job. I have 13 years of experience in the corporate world and most of this time I have been dealing with significant stress. Therefore, I had to learn a lot about stress management and try different relief techniques.
Most of the articles regarding stress management put an accent on increased and regular physical activity; improvement of nutrition habits; mountain hiking; yoga; meditation; etc. I fully share the view that those are the kind of activities that help decreasing your stress levels. However, such activities tackle the symptoms and not the real cause for work-related stress. And while sometimes stress is integral part of our jobs, there are always ways to decrease its influence on ourselves. We often underestimate the fact that stress is a matter of perception and therefore we can limit its impact through simple mental upgrade. This has been confirmed by long years of experience, learning and observations.
Of course, stress management cannot be dissected thoroughly in a single short article and therefore the idea of the present writing is mainly to turn your attention to the handling of some common types of work-related stress. I have combined personal experience as well as many external sources to give the overview on these important stress management techniques. Enjoy your read!
Do you have excessive stress?
Going forward, we have to point out that stress itself isn’t necessarily something bad. We need a healthy level of stress to remain focused, productive and competitive on the job. It is what helps us stay alert during important meetings and presentations. Stress can peak at certain moments, which is also normal. However, if you notice for a prolonged period of time one or more of the following: decreased productivity, bad mood, troubled sleep, depression, frequent health issues, you might be subject to an excessive stress. Here, we have to note that the human stress tolerance is an individual category and varies from person to person. So, when we talk about excessive stress we acknowledge that this is a relative value.
Continue reading and see some most common sources of stress and what might be some good ways to tackle them.
1. “I have too many tasks, the time is not enough”
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” – William Penn
This is powerful and very common source of stress. It is hard to say if the tasks are too many for a person, because everyone has different experience, approach and capacity to deal with them. However, if you consistently do long overtime hours, there is something wrong. Overtime hours can be necessary for short periods of time, but in the long run they don’t lead to anything positive: you are exhausted, lose focus, become less productive, etc. It is a situation, which isn’t beneficial neither for you, nor for your employer. There are two main reasons for long stay after working hours: too many tasks or improper organization (or a combination of both). Before you can make a conclusion if the tasks are too many, you have to make sure that you have an optimal work process organization and prioritization.
What to do?
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Altshule
Some tips for improving your organization and prioritization:
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Let your supervisor know. He or she has to know that you have difficulties and can support you to get out of such a situation.
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Prioritize your daily workload. Your day has to start with the highest priority tasks and then move down to the lower priority ones. Rescuetime gives some ideas on how to prioritize properly.
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Apply systematized approach towards identical tasks – find the fastest and most efficient way to accomplish a repeating task and then apply it continuously to decrease time spent on it.
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Do tasks of high importance during the not-so-busy part of the day – normally whatever your job is, there is a certain cycle of your working day. Usually either very early into the working day or at its closing hours, the intensity of the incoming work is lower as compared to the middle part of the day. This mid-part of the day is when most of the urgent requests come, the phone is ringing, the e-mails are bursting-in in bulks, etc. A real corporate “rush-hour”. Better handle high-priority task outside the “rush-hour”, thus you will: avoid interruptions; be able to focus better and be more productive.
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Be accountable, organize and track your time – as we are talking about time management, organizing your day and allocating time slots for each of your key tasks is important. This helps tracking your progress and avoiding too much time dedicated to a single task. It also helps you to meet your deadlines – a word which otherwise terrifies many of us. Usually the calendar of your e-mail client is a very good organizer as you can put all your tasks along meetings and other appointments. By sharing your calendar you will let your colleagues know when you are available or not.
- Plan your day – I have had many office days, where I land in the office with the positive motivation to have a lot of priorities done. However, the phone starts ringing, e-mails are raining and I am mainly dealing with extinguishing someone else’s fires. Next thing I see it is already afternoon and the workday is coming to its end. And I still haven’t even started with the priorities. Sounds familiar? One recipe for avoiding this vicious circle is to make a plan for the day. Best time to do it is at the end of the previous working day: set your priorities for the following day and draft a schedule. Adhering to the agenda will help you get more meaningful work done. Further to this, you can enjoy relaxed after-work hours, without burdening your thoughts to remember what are the priorities for the next day.
If you have put the above mentioned consistent efforts for a period of time and you still feel that time isn’t enough, you definitely need to address this dully to your supervisor.
2. “I take my laptop home to get some more work done”
It might happen that you have a sporadic surge of workload to finish an important task or a project. Almost anyone who has a laptop had a situation, when he or she had to work at home outside the normal working hours. However, if done on a regular basis, this doesn’t lead to anything good.
I have my own personal experience with this. The first times you take your laptop home it feels intimidating and wrong, but then with the time you get used to it and it becomes part of your daily routine. You tend to forget that you have a life outside the office and no longer pay attention to yourself, your family and friends. You don’t have time to recover, to offload stress and although you work longer, you get less work done. It is a downwards spiral all the way until you end up with some form of a burnout.
What to do?
Don’t let this happen to you and keep the office in the office 🙂
PS: In case you work from home set a cut-off time to close the lid of your laptop!
3. “My work is getting interrupted all the time by colleagues or by the phone”
“The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.” – W. Edwards Deming
You are in the middle of writing an important memo and suddenly the phone rings. It is a colleague from another department, who has some mid-to-low priority topic to discuss with you. The phone call goes from explaining the topic in detail to discussing possible solutions and might end up with private topics. At the time you hang up you have already forgotten that you were writing an important memo. You take an extra time to remember where you were at and what you wanted to write next. You write three more sentences and then the phone rings again.
What to do? How about forwarding your phone to a team member or just asking the other side to return the call later? Yes, much more effective way to finish your memo.
A similar situation happens with the e-mail Inbox. In the beginning of my career, I was a slave of my E-mail Mailbox. Once the incoming message notification popped up in the bottom corner of the screen I was interrupting whatever I was doing and reading it right away. This is a huge distraction and inefficiency.
What to do?
One way to tackle it is to set certain times for checking your mailbox: maybe every hour, maybe three times a day – it is your decision and you make it based on the specifics of your work duties. If your work is mainly about answering e-mails, the regularity will be of course more frequent 🙂
4. “I am given tasks, which aren’t related to my job”
What to do?
Know your Job Description – this might sound very basic, but from my experience many people forget about the existence of the Job Description right after they sign their contract. If it isn’t within your job description you have the formal ground to discuss it with your supervisor. Of course, keep in mind that tasks outside your normal scope of activity can be a good opportunity to learn something new and it is very likely that your attitude, as well as ability to cope are being assessed from your superiors. This can be a step-stone for your next promotion.
Thomas Edison would put it: “The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work”.
However, if it becomes more than you can handle, go to item number 5 🙂
5. “I cannot say NO”
“We need to learn the slow ‘yes’ and the quick ‘no.’” – Warren Buffett
This can be a tough nut to crack. Everyone has had the office situation where your supervisor asks you many consecutive times to get newer and newer tasks done. Despite that at some point the additional tasks exceed your capacity, you still accept them and try to fit them somehow in your schedule. At the end you are way over your capacity and you loose efficiency and motivation.
But why is it so hard to say “No” on the job? Well, here are some of the possible answers:
- saying “Yes” just comes so much more natural to you
- saying “No” can be perceived as a sign of weakness (either in your own mind, or in the mind of others)
- you lack self-confidence
- you don’t want to disappoint your superiors or colleagues
- saying “Yes” is what everyone else is doing
- you fail to recognize the extent of the commitment
- you don’t like conflicts and do everything to avoid them
What to do?
My dear reader, I am pretty sure that at least some of the above listed are familiar to you. As an individual who has experience with the full list, I can share with you that although it isn’t easy, there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and it isn’t the train :-).
- take your time before giving an answer or taking a task – don’t feel pressed to give an answer immediately.
- assess if you have the capacity to do it and if there is alignment with your priorities. Ask yourself, if you will be able to do the task without delaying something else.
- think about the resentfulness that you will start feeling just minutes after agreeing to something that you actually didn’t wanted to.
- keep in mind that saying “no” is sometimes actually equal to saying “yes” to a more meaningful work
One way to say no to your supervisor is the following: “Ok. If this is the priority I can start working on it right away. However, that does mean we won’t get X done for another three weeks.”
If you want to learn more about saying no to colleagues and customers visit rescuetime.com, who digs deeper into the subject.
6. “My work is never appreciated”
“I’m learning to appreciate everything & everyone…because the feeling of being unappreciated is horrible.” – Anonymous
Unfortunately it is very often in the corporate world that you work hard and you think that you achieve a lot, but you never get the proper recognition from your superiors. You feel that you go unnoticed and your work is just taken for granted.
What to do?
First. Make a reality check.
Find a person within your organization who knows your work and also knows what is considered a good work in your organization. It might be a trusted supervisor or a peer, but shouldn’t be a direct report. Beware for a cycle of negativity and avoid commenting with coworkers who are known to complain for everything. Talk to people of positive appearance and see how they feel. Then, reflect it through your own perspective.
One common trap is drawing premature conclusions related to your boss and the appreciation you don’t get: you don’t know what his or her circumstances are. Go to the next step.
Second. Talk to your boss.
Prepare for the meeting. Talk facts and examples. Make a list of accomplishments. Be gentle: indicate that at times you feel like your work isn’t noticed (don’t say that you want more appreciation). If you are part of a team talk for the teamwork rather than your individual. Confrontation during this initial talk isn’t a good idea, also don’t let yourself down by emotions. Stay on course to ask feedback on your performance. Ask your boss for suggestions on how you can do a better work.
Normally, if your superior is a person with sufficient emotional intelligence, you can expect some positive change in attitude after such meeting.
Third. Make a point of recognizing other’s contributions.
The others will respect me, if I treat them with respect. Always give credit to team members and colleagues for a job well done. Look for opportunities to praise them in front of their boss and peers. Such behavior creates awareness of the need for appreciation. There is a good chance that the recognition of a job well done will be reciprocated by those who have received it. Make sure that you only appreciate genuinely and don’t do it too much or too often. Appreciation is a sensitive currency and using it excessively might strongly depreciate its value.
Thanks to Fastcompany for the above laid concepts. If you want some more material on the topic, I would recommend the article of Harvard Business Review.
7. “My work is meaningless”
Have you asked yourself the questions “Why am I doing this?”, “Does this really even need to be done?”, or “Am I creating anything of value?”. If the answer is “yes, often”, the chances are that you engage yourself in activity, which you consider meaningless. Why do we engage ourselves with meaningless work? There are many answers, but none of them justifies continuing doing so.
What to do?
In my view in most of the cases one can find a meaning in their own work. At the end of the day this is a question of attitude and approach to life. No matter, if we are providing a service or manufacturing a product. No matter, if we are directly or indirectly involved. We can always find a way to contribute for the improvement of a task, process, product or even a whole company. We cannot fix each and every problem within our organization at once, but if we fix a part of it; if we help other people do their job more efficiently; if we make the teamwork faster and easier; this is already a purpose.
If at the end you really don’t find any meaning in your work, maybe it is better to search for another job.
A free tip from my experience: Keep in mind that a person is a product of what he or she does. So if we spend the majority of our day doing meaningless work, then we lose meaning ourselves. Don’t let this happen to you!
8. “My boss is an a***ole”
“You always learn both from good and bad bosses” – Rajeev Suri
We’ve all had in one way or another the kind of boss who seems to get some sort of sadistic pleasure out of making you feel miserable. Of course this can be rather subjective feeling. So if we have to include some theory here I would use the definition of Robert Sutton who has a book on the topic: an a***ole boss is “someone who leaves you feeling demeaned, de-energized, and disrespected.” Requiring e-mail responses after working hours; giving you tasks outside of the job description; having disrespectful attitude; are only some of the examples.
What to do?
First thing to realize is that you don’t have any fault for the attitude of such person. Therefore, their behavior is not your problem, but actually theirs. So what you need to do is to put your chips on keeping your best professional attitude. Focus on your core duties and try staying aside from any frustrations. It is very often that team members get approached with a passive aggressive line from their superior. By impulse you can get on the frustration roller-coaster and respond in kind. Avoid that! Whenever you are facing aggression try to be calm and close the topic swiftly.
So, for example, if your boss doesn’t like the way you treat a customer and approaches you with “Are you going to fix it or just continue your workday”, respond simply “Yes, I will fix it”. Nothing more. Aggressors are often blocked when treated without corresponding aggression. Therefore, don’t engage, keep it calm and simple. And move on.
I find this article from John Brandon rather useful for additional tips on the subject.
9. “My presentation is never good enough”
“Striving for perfection isn’t negative by itself. However, striving for perfection thinking that it can be reached is a road to failure.” – Thought of the author
Have you had the situation where you go through your presentation thousand times and every time you think it isn’t good enough and make some small amendment? Then you send the presentation to your boss and continue worrying that there might be something wrong with it. And all this despite that you have done many other presentations, which were perceived as good.
If you often have the feeling something isn’t good enough, you might be a perfectionist.
Being perfectionist isn’t necessarily a negative thing. Perfectionists hold themselves to high standards, are diligent workers, and can help reign in an unruly workplace. However, they can also be viewed as controlling, overly critical, or as micromanagers in the eyes of subordinates and colleagues. When tired, bored, or under increased pressure, these perfectionist qualities can become detrimental to their performance, negatively impacting their own work and that of others.
We have to outline that there are different types of perfectionism:
- Self-oriented perfectionists tend to have unrealistic standards for themselves. In striving to meet these standards, they can be overly self-critical and focus excessively on their own flaws.
- Other-oriented perfectionism describes individuals who have unrealistic standards and expectations about the abilities of people around them. People who display this characteristic are often overly evaluative of others’ performance. They not only hold others to unrealistic standards, but also may be overly critical when these standards are not met.
- Socially prescribed perfectionism results when individuals believe others have perfectionist expectations directed at them. Unlike characteristics associated with self-oriented perfectionism, where an individual maintains high standards at all times to avoid letting him- or herself down, the socially prescribed perfectionist is motivated by a fear of disappointing others. These individuals believe they will be valued only if they produce nothing less than perfect work.
What to do?
- Realize that no one’s perfect!
- Don’t compare yourself to others – “There is always a bigger fish” says the fictional character of Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars. If we contemplate on this piece of wisdom, we will find out that constant comparisons to others are bringing us only disappointment. Acknowledging that each individual has its own path with own choices, is important to fight perfectionism’s negative aspects.
- Set realistic goals – this is very hard for a perfectionist. However, it is one of the best medicines. If you reach an attainable goal, you can’t argue with the result. Therefore you will satisfy your natural need for achievement. Don’t forget to reward yourself as you meet your goals.
- Consider whether it’s worth the stress. Normally we don’t deal with life and death situations in the corporate world. And we tend to over-stress for topics, which at the end of the day aren’t significant for our long term development. So, next time when you are stressing over an issue, think if this will be worth the stress in one year from now. If it’s not, don’t make fuss about it.
- Understand the downside of perfectionism. If you’re constantly missing deadlines, stressing out your coworkers, letting things fall through the cracks, or feel stressed and overwhelmed, then understanding the true implications of such items can bring awareness to help you take steps to approach your work differently.
10. “I don’t like changes”
I would like to use the “change” topic as a conclusion. And without analyzing it, I simply convey the following message: don’t do same things the same way every day. Things around us change rapidly, so we have to adapt to a new reality on a daily basis. Always try to improve and find a way to be more efficient and make your work more meaningful. Get out of your comfort zone! Keep your attitude positive! Those last sentences are the transition to my next article, which will deal with self-development when part of a big corporation.
By this line you have read through many techniques for stress management on your workplace. I hope that at least some of them will be useful and will impact positively how you feel in your work life. If you have an issue, which you want to discuss or you have other thoughts on the topic, I will be more than happy to hear your feedback.
To read our other Active Life articles just visit our Active Life section.
Credits to Hogan Assessments for their article, which I used to describe Perfectionism.
P.S. Other articles from the same author:
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