Did you know that 69% of workers say the coronavirus pandemic is the most stressful time of their entire professional career? That’s not surprising.
To say we’re living through a stressful time in our lives is an understatement. A quick glance at a news headline is enough to get your heart racing.
We’ve all experienced stress, both in our personal and professional lives, and it’s inevitable that it will be a part of our lives, but it can impact you in different ways depending on how you react to it. It can either act as a motivator or a roadblock to being productive.
Here are some tips to help navigate the connection between stress and productivity.
Have you ever just had so much on your plate that you genuinely don’t know where to get started, so instead of diving in, you just blankly stare until you can actually muster up the courage to begin (all while thinking about everything else that’s on your plate)? Me too.
I realize I’m not explaining a foreign concept to you. If you’ve experienced stress, you know what an impact it can have on getting things done efficiently. However, even though you’ve likely experienced the situations below, I wanted to point out the various ways it can have an impact on you and in turn, your productivity, so that you can be aware of them the next time you’re stressed so that you can best prepare yourself to lessen the blow.
Stress can make you feel out of control.
Don’t we know it. The overwhelming feelings of stress can make your head spin and seem like you’re unable to grasp ahold of anything around you. It’s distracting, which, needless to say, is not conducive to productivity. The next time you’re stressed, acknowledge it, take a step back, and see if you can harness the stress to your advantage instead.
Tips to take back control
Relationship stress hinders all kinds of productivity.
Are you and your significant other fighting more? Is there tension between you and your best friend? Are you and your boss not seeing eye-to-eye. Stress is often the key player in these situations and it takes a toll on you more than you think. People tend to be more productive when they have a solid support system around them, so when you’re not on good terms, not only is it a detriment to your relationship, but your productivity in general.
Tips to make sure your relationships are solid
The negative impacts of stress on health.
Ever get stress-induced headaches? Have you ever tried to work through these headaches? While this is difficult in itself, the headache can also serve as a metaphor. When one aspect of your health isn’t up to par, it’s impossible to run at full capacity.
Studies are continuing to unveil that stress can significantly take a toll on your health and can even lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. Not to mention all the ways it can impact your mental health! Do these symptoms sound like attributes of a person that’s performing at 100%?
A healthy mind and body, functioning at full capacity, can do wonders for productivity and the amount you can contribute to various aspects of your life in a day.
Tips for getting healthier to increase productivity
Work and stress - need I say more?
Work and stress are like peanut butter and jelly. They always seem to find each other, don’t they? Too much stress can significantly impact your workload.
Just a few of the many ways it can impact you personally include:
Tips to mitigate work-related stress
Work often tops the charts as a number one stressor for employees, so companies need to be doing what they can to improve their work culture to keep employees as stress-free as possible, otherwise, you risk major negative impacts towards your bottom line and increased turnover. A few ways businesses are working to improve their environment include:
Believe it or not, stress can actually be a good thing if you’re able to manage it correctly. There is a difference between significant stress, the kind that can truly have a negative impact on you, and lighter stress.
The latter is necessary. It can light a fire under you and actually motivate you to get things done. It actually does improve cognitive function! If we didn’t have any stress, we’d risk becoming complacent and wouldn’t have a strong drive to reach for our goals or simply accomplish regular tasks.
A little stress can help you stretch your capabilities and push the limits of your comfort zone, which can result in a lot of growth and positive performance. Building up this kind of stress over time can help make you more resilient to other stressors that come your way.
In a nutshell, stress is basically a bell curve, and you want to be on top of that curve. If you have too little stress, you risk inefficiency due to lack of motivation, but if you have too much stress, you risk inefficiency due to the various reasons we mentioned above. Follow the coping mechanisms previously stated to keep you at the top of the curve.
At the root of a lot of your stressors is the ability to organize your life and plan ahead. Time is often a hindrance to being proactive about getting rid of the stress triggers that surround you on a daily basis, but people just don’t know how to create that time for themselves (aside from getting up earlier or working later which we all know won’t do you any good in the long run).
LifeStarr is an app that allows you to stay organized while saving you time so that you can focus on what matters and conquer the things weighing on you. It allows you to only focus on tasks when you need to, and not worry about them when you don’t. Unlike other task management platforms, and there are many, LifeStarr allows you to:
If you’re looking for a way to take back control of your life, decrease stress, and increase productivity, look no further than LifeStarr.