Personal Productivity And Task Management

How many times have been assigned to or undertaken a large project, only to become overwhelmed at the sheer scope of time and effort required? If so, you’re not alone – managing long-term, large-scale projects is a challenging prospect, even for those experienced at it. And then consider juggling three or four or even five or more at a time – for many people the mere thought of it is staggering.

And yet, as you look around your workplace, you can probably spot someone who seems to thrive on doing it and actually does it exceptionally well. And while that person may not seem to be any more intelligent or hardworking than you are, for some reason they embrace the challenge while you shy away from it.

The underlying difference between yourself and that person is simply this – they understand and practice a very simply concept – Task Management.

Regardless of the actual scope of work involved or the timeframe to completion, every project can be broken down into smaller, easily managed tasks that are readily completed over the short-term. As each task is completed, it contributes towards the completion of the project itself, in due time.

More often than not, each task itself can then be broken down into a fixed schedule, allowing you to steadily and consistently work at it over a number of days or weeks. Depending upon the type of task, it may even be possible to work on several tasks concurrently, by spending a relatively small amount of time on each, every day.

The watchwords of Task Management are diligence and consistency, but tempered with flexibility. A given task may need to be paused if it is dependent upon the completion of another task or an unexpected issue presents itself. With flexible scheduling and a willingness to adapt to these unforeseen barriers, the project itself will continue while you explore options to resolve them.

Those whom excel at project management do so because they are able work in such a way that each and every day they make some degree progress on one or more of the tasks involved. This may mean spending as little as 10 or 15 minutes per day or up to an hour on each task. At different milestones within the project, the amount of time spent each day will inevitably vary.

It is for this very reason that project managers are often able to take on multiple projects simultaneously and not become stressed over their workload. Managing several projects at once actually breaks up the monotony of working on one single thing at any given time. It provides a way for you to step back from each project for a short time and then resume it the next day with a fresh perspective.

While we can never lose sight of the overall project itself, by focusing on Task Management, careful scheduling and consistency in how we approach our work, we can easily increase our Personal Productivity without unduly frustrating ourselves or becoming stressed about our workload.

How to Relieve Stress

Stress can have a number of adverse affects on your health, both short-term and long-term.  If you’re experiencing some of the following symptoms, it could indicate that you could benefit from some advice on how to relieve stress before your health suffers any worse than it already has.

Feelings of anger, fear or helplessness are common indicators of stress, as is insomnia.  Stress can cause headaches and pain in the jaw, neck and back.  Habitual smoking, drinking, overeating and drug abuse are also caused by stress.

Stress is how your body responds to change.  And situations that cause stress in one person may not cause stress in another.  It’s a very individual experience.  One person may become tense when driving over high bridges, while another may enjoy the view.  The thought of skydiving terrifies some people, but others find it thrilling.  It’s nearly impossible to classify any particular situation as stressful, because what causes stress in one person could be a source of enjoyment for the next.  The key is to identify and manage what is stressful for you personally, because letting stress go unmanaged can have life-threatening health consequences.

Things you feel that you have no control over can be upsetting.  But remember that it’s not the situation, but how you deal with it that’s important.  You can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can choose how you handle stressful situations.

Here are some tips for relieving your stress:

• Focus on your breathing and breathe slow, deep and deliberately.  Picture a peaceful scene in your mind.
• Exercise regularly.  Exercising releases tension from your body.  Find something you enjoy that gets the major muscle groups going.  Jogging, walking, swimming or bicycling are all excellent choices.
• Count to ten slowly and deliberately.  This helps you to pause and relax before reacting to a stressful situation.
• Do some stretching exercises several times during the day.  Stretching relaxes the muscles and reduces tension.
• Have a friend massage the back of your neck, shoulders and upper back.  These muscles get especially tense when you are stressed.
• Take hot showers and baths.
• Listen to relaxing music.
• Talk to your family and friends about what is causing you stress.
• Seek help when you need it.  If you have recurring headaches and neck or upper back pain, and are having problems sleeping, you should see your doctor.

Learning how to relieve stress, and putting these methods to use are critical your overall health and happiness.  Try to learn to accept what you can’t change.  Not everything is going to happen the way you want it to.  Train yourself to look for the good in what appears to be a bad situation, talk to others about your troubles, and try to mentally remove yourself from the situation then evaluate it from the outside looking in.

Stress Breathing Techniques

Stress Breathing Techniques – Do NOT Take A Deep Breath

When we begin feeling stressed, we have a tendency to also begin breathing faster and shallowly, which reduces the volume of carbon dioxide in our blood and causes blood vessels to constrict. More often than not, this can lead to hyper-ventilation, which throws our metabolism completely out of whack!

Coaches and athletes understand the need to practice good breathing habits to keep metabolism’s in balance and produce up to 99% of the body’s energy aerobically. Conversely, those of us who have poor breathing habits experience a drop to around 85%, which is a significant decline in aerobic energy production.

The physiological changes caused by poor breathing habits throws off our pH balance, the ratio of O2 to CO2 in the bloodstream, diminished energy and of course a feeling of anxiety or poor health in general. Although we naturally breathe autonomously, over the course of our lifetimes we actually learn to breathe incorrectly. It’s a behavior that can be unlearned given time and effort.

That said, we first need to become aware of our breathing habits, by actually listening to ourselves breathe. We need to time how many breaths we take per minute and if that number is much over 12 in a relaxed state, we need to think about how we can best re-learn to breathe normally.

The first step is to avoid holding the stomach in, preventing the diaphragm from working properly. Relax your stomach muscles and inhale slowly through your nose to a count of 3. Now hold that breathe for a second and then exhale to a count of 6. Repeat that three times and then allow yourself to breath normally. The entire exercise should have taken you 30 seconds.

Since a good 70% of your body’s waste is eliminated through exhaling, you’re going to always attempt to double the time spent exhaling compared to inhaling. This allows your body to balance its metabolism and pH levels and well as increase the amount of energy produced. In stressful situations, your body will literally relax as you do it and your fight or flight response will quickly recede.

As a quick fix, this type of breathing technique works wonders for calming yourself down, but does not address the larger issue of learning to breath this way all of the time. To do this, you need to remain aware of your breathing habits and continually remind yourself to stay in control of your breathing.

Over time, you will develop the habit, but meanwhile, you may need prompting. One solution is to set a timer (for example on a digital watch) to beep every 3 to 5 minutes as a reminder to check your breathing. This helps because as we submerse ourselves into a given task, we can easily lose track of our breathing without realizing it.

You may even find it helpful to repeat a phrase during your practice like, “I’m breathing in”, “I’m breathing out”, to help you establish the proper rhythm. Your goal is to allow your body to take over autonomously with proper breathing habits as a result of your practice.

If you condition yourself to breath properly, especially in stressful situations, you will alleviate the stress and anxiety of it and remain calm and rational. Good breathing habits are learned, so training yourself beginning today will get you back on track to a happier, healthier you!

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