Life is busy these days, right? The sheer number of duties and functions and actions that you need to perform and be on top of regarding your practice can seem daunting.
Then add in being a mother or a father or the coach for kids teams, courses you need to do for CE credits, buying life insurance, getting a new roof ordered for your house, cleaning the house, making meals, balancing the finances, and on and on. Phew! The stress of it all. There must be an answer for all this.
Dump It / Ignore It?
For some people, there are a variety of answers that are not too desirable: dump the functions or problems on someone else, or ignore everything you don’t want to confront and deal with (in the hopes it goes away or someone else takes care of it), etc.
However, most of us want to rise up and do it all efficiently and expeditiously so here are some hot tips on how to get more done with less stress.
Efficiency Technique
The first point is an efficiency technique: When you start to do something, don’t get pulled off of it until it is completed. This may sound very simplistic but it really works. Leaving incompletely done actions all over the place just slows you down and makes you feel incompetent and like you have too many things on your mind. (for more info check: “The Real Reason For Stress and Burnout”)
Now, that is not to say that should an emergency arise in the middle of something else that you shouldn’t go handle it. Just remember to go right back to the other action you ditched and get it finished before starting another one.
Consciously try this out for a few days and work with it until you are good at it. You will see the difference in your stress level.
Break it Down
Next, there are some actions that are lengthy and can’t be done in one go. The tip here is to break it into segments and schedule out when you are getting each segment completed by. Have a pending basket where you keep incomplete business or actions recorded.
Ask for Help
Finally, it is okay to delegate duties and not be a drama king or queen that feels that they’re the only one who can get anything done. If you have staff or family members that could or should be helping out, utilize their services and let them help. No one loves being around someone who obviously needs help but won’t let anyone help them. We are all born to help and it feels good to do so. Rewarding people who help also helps.
There you go. Use these tips and see what happens.
