Am I Stressed?

You probably are, here's how to deal with it.

If you’re having to ask if you’re stressed, then I’m sorry to say, you probably are.

I’d been fortunate to have a few easy months at work, so it came as a complete surprise when one day this question popped into my restless mind:

Am I stressed?

And the answer was a resounding yes.

Not uber stressed, just mildly so. But even mild stress is enough to cause discomfort, hamper productivity, and mess you up for days or weeks on end.

So I’m here today to talk about how to (read: I) deal with it.

Stress, as with most things, is a personal experience. We get stressed for different reasons, in different ways. But I believe there is a commonality to our experiences of stress.

Stress usually occurs when:

• There are multiple tasks (usually of different natures) vying for your attention.

• There are competing deadlines.

• There is a sense that you won’t be able to complete everything in time.

• There is a feeling that work is taking over your life.

This week I pretty much hit all four criteria. I was suddenly being assigned more tasks in my day job. Most of those tasks were new so I had no conception of how long it would take to do. I was given two big subtitles projects on successive weeks, one of which was likely to entail lots of research, which meant more time would be needed to complete the translation, especially if I wanted to do a good job (which I always do).

After a few days of discomfort and much restlessness, I finally came to the conclusion that my situation was stressing me out.

Here’s what I did:

1. I reinstated my daily morning meditations. (This helped to quieten my restless mind and gave me some much-needed minutes of peace where I wasn’t worried/stressed.)

2. I listed out all the deadlines and used the dates to prioritise what to do first. (You can do this on paper, I did it in my head because I’m used to juggling deadlines.)

3. I estimated how much time I would need for each task¹ and mentally assigned them to specific days. (On Saturday I will do this. On Monday I will do that.)

4. I wrote down when I would do what in the simplest terms possible.

5. I proceeded to do as planned.

6. I respected the time I allocated to not working. (We said we’d go out at 1pm, so we went out at 1pm. It didn’t matter how much I’d got done before 1pm. It was more important to have my personal time.)

7. I didn’t work on Sunday. (Sundays are my sacred screen-free days. I don’t open up my laptop and usually put my phone in a different room for most, if not all, of the day.)

It’s Saturday as I’m writing this. So far I’ve made it up to Point 6.

The stress is still there, but it’s feeling more manageable. That’s actually why I’m here now, writing about it. Writing helps me process. So I guess you could say there’s a Point 6.5: Write about it.

Tomorrow is my Sunday. I plan to go out and have fun and forget about all the tasks waiting for me on Monday, which actually aren’t that many because I’ve allocated some to Friday (yesterday) and Saturday (today) and they’re ALL DONE BABEH.

It’s now 1pm. I told my partner I’d be done with work on Saturday latest 2pm. So I’m going to sign off now and go cook lunch.

Respect your personal time. That’s probably the most important step of all.

Well, that was helpful (for me). Hope it was helpful for you too.

What does stress feel like for you? What causes it? How do you deal with it?

Write a reply, leave a comment, and share this with a stressed friend.

Until next Friday… Stay cool, stay safe, stay thoughtful,

Val

1. This is where Clockify came in really handy. I’ve written before about how tracking my time saved my productivity. Check it out.