Time Management and Stress.

The correlation between Time Management and Stress is indisputable; if you want to reduce your Stress levels this is the place to start.

Stress and Time Management is a vast topic, one with a tremendous amount of complexity and intermingled issues that cloud the basics. In my humble opinion, we can reduce this complex relationship down to a few simple fundamentals.

What is Stress?

It’s the emotion or feeling we experience that stops us from enjoying life and prevents us from completing things we want to do. This works for me and it has worked for my clients over the last 35 years or so. I do not make money from treating or dealing with Stress related issues or ailments. This allows me a certain amount of freedom. I am not cornered into dealing with Stress on a singular level; I deal with Stress on what I consider its root cause.

That does not mean that I do not take it seriously, nor does it mean that I do not see the damage it can cause and how it adversely affects my clients. What it means is that I deal with Stress at the source, cut it off at the pass, so to speak. The way to reduce your Stress levels is to not allow Stress to take hold. We have to remember that we allow Stress to take hold and to effect us. This fact is a hard one for some of us to accept, but it is the start point from which we can make inroads into reducing our Stress levels.

What Causes Stress?

If I could bottle this, I would be rich. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a singular cause for Stress. Stress affects different people in different ways. One situation may cause some people to become stressed, anxious, while not affecting other people at all. Putting this aside for a moment, there is a general situation that the majority of people, when faced with this, find themselves getting nervous, anxious, unable to function at their best, all symptoms of stress.

This situation is a feeling a not being in control, not being in charge and not knowing what is going to happen next.  It’s a common feeling for many people; it’s a feeling of helplessness and a feeling that you are not the captain of your own ship. What is important here is not having a list of all 147 potential causes of Stress, a number that I pulled out of the air.  What is important is recognizing that the 3 that I listed here are ones that, in all likelihood, effect 99 % of the people reading this.

What is important is that by eliminating these feelings, we will have taken a huge bite out of what causes Stress in you and that really is the point here.

What to Do About It ?

How do you take charge, put yourself in control and always be in a position to know what will happen to you next? Simple, properly manage your Time. All of these functions and conditions run through and are tied to your ability to manage your time. Proper Time Management is all about putting you back in control of your time, making you the person who makes the decisions and is the one who dictates the agenda.

The reason you do not know what is going to happen next is that you have not taken the steps to ensure what you want to do is on your agenda. The way to ensure what you want to do is on your agenda, to have an agenda in the first place. That is another function and purpose of proper Time Management, lay out your agenda, in advance, and when it comes time to go to bat, you know what you want to do and you know when you are going to do it.

With medical exceptions, Stress is something we allow to happen to ourselves. It is also something that is entirely within our control to greatly reduce if not totally eliminate. You owe it to yourself to investigate the effect that a proper Time Management System can have on your Stress levels.