3 Ways to Keep Stress From Poisoning Your Work Environment

Raise your hand if this feels familiar: You’re completely overwhelmed, frantic and stressed to the max. You have a never-ending task list and not enough hours in the day. Inadvertently, you end up either burdening yourself to the breaking point resulting in poor work and even more stress or barking orders at your team, further perpetuating the tension and negativity.

Unfortunately, many of us have been there more often than we’d like. It’s times like these when we have to take extra care not to let our stress adversely affect our team. When we radiate negativity, it’s bad for everyone. Instead of letting that happen, here are a few tips for handling your stress and maintaining a positive team attitude in crazy-busy times.

1. Take time to plan and prioritize. It may seem counterproductive at the time, but sitting down and mapping out all of your tasks and their priority levels will save you countless freakout moments down the road. Use a “Task List” tool, whether on your calendar, phone, email client or good old pen and paper, to capture everything on your plate. Leave no task uncaptured, no matter how trivial; this will help you avoid unplanned or unaccounted for work time. This is also a good time to identify other people on your team who would be able to execute certain tasks. Next, prioritize all of your tasks. You can do this by importance/impact level or due date; use any method you prefer that results in a prioritized list. Last, assign realistic timeframes to each task. Will that memo take 15 minutes to draft or will it really take an hour? By assigning time frames to your tasks, you’ll know if you need to delegate a task or communicate to management if something is going to slip.

2. Ask for and accept help. When you’ve moving a million miles an hour, it seems impossible to slow down and ask for help. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking “It will take me longer to explain how to do this than to just do it myself.” This is a mistake that we all make, and it’s easy to avoid. Be clear on your expectations and take the time necessary to explain the task in detail. By trying to do everything yourself, you are conveying to your team that you don’t think they are capable of helping or you don’t trust them enough to ask. This results in a toxic, unconstructive work environment. Learning how to delegate effectively is a life-changing skill that leaders should continuously work toward.

3. Communicate. Don’t keep your team in the dark about how overwhelmed you are. Chances are they already know and will appreciate your transparency. In fact, they will likely be eager to help where they can; take advantage of these opportunities to build trust and respect amongst your team.

While no how-to blog will ever make your work stress magically disappear, these tips can at least help you avoid creating a poisonous work environment while managing that unmanageable to-do list.

Darcy Ziegler leads Corner Alliance's corporate communications team. She has experience in public safety communications, organizational development and knowledge management. 

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