Strategies To Avoid Being Overwhelmed At Work.jpg

Whether your work is something you’ve always dreamed of or not, there will be days or weeks or even months when you just feel like everything is too much for you. You’ll feel like you can’t possibly handle them either because of the workload or the difficulty of them. However, believe it or not, sometimes it’s not just because of your work or tasks per se but the accumulation of stressors that is making you feel like the ceiling is gonna come crashing down on you. To help relax your mind and body and be in control of the situation again, here are some tips that may come in handy.

Do Breathing Exercises

Sit back in your chair a little, close your eyes and concentrate on counting your own breath (an inhale and exhale counts as a single breath). Keep going until you have reached 108. As the average person takes 15-20 breaths per minute this exercise will take you between six and eight minutes to complete and you really will feel so much calmer and relaxed once you’re done. Why 108? You probably don’t realize this but the number 108 has, according to many spiritualists and yoga practitioners, great cosmic significance. Therefore many of them practice this exercise in this manner. And in any case, it’s a nice, even number that will give you just the right amount of time to rest during a busy day.

Take A Musical Interlude

Do not underestimate the power of taking a break while listening to some music. Grab a pair of headphones, kick back in your chair, close your eyes and listen to some great music for fifteen minutes. It doesn’t matter what you listen to as long as it helps you relax. But don’t confuse this to listening music while working. Sometimes, you just gotta stop what you’re working on especially if it’s something that’s making you go crazy and really get lost with the music. When you’re done, you’ll see that your head will feel clearer and lighter.

One Task At A Time

You most likely got into the situation you’re in now because it felt like everything carried equal importance. Which is natural. In a lot of situations it’s hard or uncomfortable to set priorities. However, when you try to make progress on everything at once, you only end up thrashing and wasting your time. So what you can do is to focus on one task at a time. Make a list of your tops 6 task that needs to be accomplished that day. Make sure you write them down in order of their importance, meaning you start with the most important task first. After that you now concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task. Then you approach the rest of the list in the same manner. If you have unfinished items then you simply move them to the list the following day. This is a great method for those peak months or seasons when it really gets busy and packed at work.

Prioritize Your Tasks Depending On Importance And Urgency

When you have a lot on your plate, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and end up not finishing anything at all. Save yourself from this black hole! Assess each task you have and decide which ones to work on first depending on their urgency and importance and then attack them accordingly. This way you’re actually getting some work done instead of stressing over having so much to do and not being able to work on them because you’re already slammed by stressing over it. You can also apply the 4 D's of time management which are (do now!) what is important/urgent, (delay - do later) important/not urgent, (delegate) not important/urgent, (don’t bother. delete this task) not important/not urgent. This way your head is not full of everything you need to do to the point that you’re panicking because you don’t know how to tackle and actually finish them.

Find A Way To Move

When the phone rings, get up! You almost do your entire work sitting down, take a phone call as an opportunity to stand up and take some pressure off your lumbar disc. Eat your lunch away from your desk. Go to the cafeteria, or eat your home-made lunch at the nearby park. That’s a change of scenery, a little exercise (walking), and breathing fresh air all rolled into one. If you’re stuck on a problem, idea, or a project, get up from your desk, walk around or do some physical task. Moving your body refreshes the brain more than staring at the computer for hours. Get water, stretch, or even walk to your colleague and talk to them personally to discuss about work than phoning or emailing. This doesn’t just encourage more productivity at work but also promotes less sick leave due to back pain by maintaining movement throughout the day. Anything that will make you move from your chair, do it!

Visit A Chiropractor

People say that stress is all in the mindset, but you should know that your body condition play a big role in it too. Receiving adjustments from a chiropractor here in Singapore can make a significant difference in your stress level by relieving pain or discomfort caused by misalignment, helping you sleep better at night, and even treat other health conditions like constant headache and digestive problems which are without a doubt stressful. Aside from that, you’ll find that when your body is in tip-top condition, your performance at work improves as well and you’re less likely to feel sick and tired of going to work every day.