I am convinced by personal experience, observation and measurement that highly productive and effective people feel less negative stress. Indeed, our measurements demonstrate an inverse correlation between highly productive performance and negative stress.

Because of my focus on helping people achieve their results easier, I was interested in seeing this infographic, produced by Suzanne Bourner from Human Driven Business ltd, after meeting her at a conference recently. 

Based upon my training conversations with thousands of people, as well as looking at all the relevant research, I have concluded that the biggest cause of work related stress is that sense of feeling out of control. It is generally not the volume of work, unrealistic targets, nor the team being stretched thin per se. It is that sense of not being able to control the competing (and often conflicting) priorities within a demanding workday.

3 App-free things to do to regain that sense of control over your workload and thereby reduce your stress

  1. Give yourself a good talking to: Given that you probably can’t work any harder on a sustainable basis, ask yourself how robust your current workload and priority management processes are. How are you currently building the personal productive capacity that will future-proof you. Don’t simply accept your current default behaviours!
  2. Reconnect with your purpose and strategy, both professionally and personally. Aligning our purpose to our priorities within our workloads helps us make tougher decisions easier.
  3. Create clarity: Use fewer management tools and integrate them better. Too many people use too many tools to manage their information flows, their commitments, To-Dos, ongoing projects and all the other inputs that make up their total workload. Treat reliance on Memory as a tool in this regard. Trying to manage competing priorities in your head whilst thinking on your feet  rewards reactivity, contributes to crisis and chaos management and is – in itself – a major stressor for oneself and those who deal with the fallout.

Results you can achieve by changing your current workload and priority management approaches

It is no surprise to me that, when we measure the results of our proven workload, time and priority management training, 5 of the key client measurements prove this inverse correlation. These measurements are:

  1. 59 minute per person per day productivity gain
  2. 57% Improvement in Email and technology tools management skills
  3. 56% Improvement in Planning and Organisation
  4. 37% improvement in balancing Work / Life demands
  5. 43% reduction in Stress levels

My thanks to Suzanne for allowing me to reproduce her infographic here.

Grab hold of me if you want to achieve higher productivity and lower negative stress with your team.

Grab hold of Suzanne if you want to check out her employee engagement work.

Photo: jmpaget / 123RF Stock Photo

Till next time…..