According to a 2019 Stress Epidemic report by Wrike, 94% of employees feel stressed at work. And a third of them revealed that the stress they are feeling is high or unsustainably high.

Unfortunately, stress can hurt an employee’s productivity and physical and mental well-being. This includes an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, and burnout.

If you do not want that to happen to you, here are seven stress management tips you need to know:

Create a Daily Schedule

Sure, you have regular hours to maintain the office, but that should not stop you from writing down your to-dos for the day. Doing so can add variation to your day and prevent you from guessing what you need to accomplish.

Nonetheless, you should not make your schedule too rigid. Meaning, there is no need to follow it down to a tee or finish everything in one day.

Be open for emergency meetings and break down major tasks into smaller ones. Another thing you can include in your schedule is cleaning your desk before or after working.

Avoid Multitasking

Due to technological advances, we can now streamline how we accomplish our tasks. As such, we came to a point wherein we can do more tasks at a given period than expected.

However, you do not have to do multiple tasks at the same time. In fact, the American Psychological Association revealed that doing so consumes 40% of your productive time. Thus, you are not being effective at what you do.

Prioritize Your Tasks

The key to not being stressed out for having a laundry list of to-do is prioritizing your tasks. And you can implement “The Rule of 3” to do that.

What you can do is list down your three priorities for the day. Ensure that you accomplish these before cluttering your mind and day with reactive tasks. This includes checking your email, listening to voicemails, or decluttering your office table.

What’s cool about The Rule of 3 is that it gives you room for flexibility like emergency meetings or fieldwork. And if you can accomplish all three, you can add smaller tasks to your to-dos for today.

Otherwise, you can follow the next tip.

Delegate Task

Whether you have subordinates or with a team, it is always best to ask for help when you need it. This is where delegating comes in.

What are the tasks you can delegate? These are the items that you cannot add to your list of three priorities. That’s because they are not your priorities.

Another excellent example is overlapping tasks. These are to-dos that require components from other departments to push through.

Say you are in the PR Department and you are making a press release for the company’s financial standing. You will need the report from the Finance Department.

You can ask someone from finance to generate the report for you. And then let someone from your team organize the report, so all you will need to do is attach it to your press release.

Use Project Management Tools

Organizing your tasks and delegating some of them to your team can be overwhelming. And this is where project management tools could come in handy.

For one, it gives you a bird’ eye view of how your projects are progressing. Such as if you are meeting the deadline or not?

Project management tools also encourage accountability. That’s because you know who is doing what and when you should expect the output. Another is that you know which tasks are your responsibility.

Know When to Take a Break

According to a Draugiem Group study, the optimal work rhythm is 52 minutes of work followed by 17 minutes of break.

That’s because the brain naturally works in a burst, which lasts roughly an hour. This will be followed by a decrease in energy that lasts about 20 minutes.

On the other hand, working for a few hours straight exhausts our brains. This explains why our focus wavers after a few hours of work.

So, what breaks can you do for 15-20 minutes? Anything that can separate you from your work. This includes walking, reading, and hanging out with your colleagues.

Declutter to Destress

At Maid Sailors Office Cleaning Company, they believe that a clean work desk can impact your productivity.

For one, it helps maintain the pristine condition of your space. Second, it reduces the distraction that can hamper your productivity.

Imagine having to spend five minutes looking for a pen that was buried on a pile of paper. Had you decluttered and organized your desk, you would have been able to pick your pen immediately and sign that document.

That said, it is imperative to spend a minute or two to wipe your office desk clean before or after work. That way, you can always start the day with a clean slate.

Work-related stress is inevitable. Nonetheless, it can be manageable. And the tips listed above are just a few of the many that can help you do so.

This post was written by Maid Sailors’ Raymond Chiu, one of our guest authors. Here at the IseeQ blog, the insights of other professionals are always appreciated, so you have a topic idea in mind feel free to contact us!