Workplace stress is fast becoming the plague of the 21st century. You could fill your house with references on why this is so, but that's for the academics. We haven't got the time or the will to analyse it all. But what is important is how to you may avoid it.
Basically, you need to work smarter, not harder. Here are a few tips on doing just this.
- Pick out the key issues of your work. Identify and work on the important, priority items; the ones that will progress your career. This is the stuff you should be focusing your efforts on in order to make an impact; everything else is just treading water.
- However, you can't just ignore the routine stuff. This you should either systematise, delegate or ignore. Having a systematic way of doing the everyday stuff gets it done quicker, more efficiently and with far fewer errors or wasted thinking time. Write all your procedures down, if it helps to get it clear in your own head. Then look for ways to simplify it. Once it is systematised, it is easier to delegate as well.
- Don't let people dump work on you. It's just laziness. Get them to take it to the boss (unless you are the boss), or suggest someone else is better qualified to do whatever it is. Just get them out of your space. Offer suggestions by all means - two heads are better than one - but don't do the work for them. They will usually find a solution if forced to.
- Delegate upwards. If you have tricky tasks to do, new stuff or things that require a lot of donkey work on your part, there are certain ways around it.
Ask your boss for help, guidance and support. In the modern organisation, that is what they are there for, anyway.
They will often ask you to "stick with it for now" or "do your best" - and then promptly forget about it. In which case, you are surprised, are you not, that they should shun an opportunity to improve efficiency and effectiveness by giving you the support you need.
- Ask for training. You'd be surprised what modern software can do these days; you just need to know where to look.
- Tell your boss it is really someone else's job and outside of your remit. You would do it as a favour, but as it stands, it is just too time-consuming.
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