One of the best stress-busters is to weed out the chaos and complexity of your work world. Here’s a quote from Elaine St. James, the bestselling author of Simplify Your Life and Simplify Your Life at Work: “Maintaining a complicated life is a great way to avoid improving it.” Are you finding yourself at the end of a workday unsure of where the time went? You know you were busy, but you just aren’t sure what you accomplished? If you answered “yes,” then chances are your work life is too complicated.
The complexity is creating distractions, reactive responses on your part, a dull roar constantly in the background with no time for planning, thinking, assessing. To start minimizing the distractions and simplifying your work life, try a few of these suggestions adapted from St. James: Keep asking the question, “Is this activity going to streamline and simplify my work flow?” Ask, “What is it that’s most complicating my life?” Always estimate the time it will take to get a project done-then double it.