Recently I was discussing workload with a business contact. This was, in part, because we were talking about Christmas and the number of extra things that needed to be done. Neither of us had been twiddling our thumbs before Christmas loomed its head! (Full disclosure means I need to say that being on holiday a lot was both wonderful and brought with it challenges of time management. My contact’s business was also growing, bringing with it its own challenges.) We talked about how we were feeling, and we both agreed that we were feeling a bit of pressure.
We began to discuss what we could do to reduce the stress and we both had different ways of dealing with this. For me exercise is my stress reliever. When I exercise, I feel better about myself, more able to deal with stress and tasks. I also do some of my best thinking as a I work out. Often I will do some exercise interspersed with admin tasks, phone calls, invoices etc. My contact had a completely differed way of dealing with his stress.
He said he “Mentally pulled into the sidings”. It was a phrase and a practise that he had learned from his dad and whilst never really analysing what it actually referred to, for him it meant stopping what he was doing and going and just sitting, usually in his garden. He would make a nice hot drink, sometimes some music or an article he wanted to read “when he had a minute” or a chapter of a book he was reading. He had learnt to use this as a way of switching off for a short time.
Although our methods were completely different, we both agreed that allowing that time for ourselves left us feeling better able to deal with the things needing doing. So what is your way of dealing with pressure? Exercise? Pulling into the sidings? Something else?
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Have fun,
Glenys
