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stress

Can you afford not to fill your tank today?

Sarah · Apr 30, 2018 · 1 Comment

The gas gauge flashed. 9 miles to empty.

9 miles to empty?! How did that happen? Wasn’t it just 35 miles?

Oh, right. That had been three days ago, and I had repeatedly put off filling the tank.

I recently returned from a business trip, and had been late to one thing after another since my return.

First it was an evening event, then daycare drop off, then daycare pickup. There was never enough time!

This particular morning, I’d left the house later than I intended and was already going to be 5 minutes late for a meeting. Fortunately, it was a meeting that a few attendees weren’t local and would already be calling in for.

I’d forgotten I needed to get gas…again.

As I drove, I glanced at the “9 miles to empty” flashing and mentally debated if I could make it to work and get gas afterword.

Then I realized…this is ridiculous.

If I’m already going to call in for the first 5 minutes of the meeting, calling in for the first 10 doesn’t matter. Running out of gas on the side of the road does.

I know better.

Why was I not willing to prioritize my own wellness?

I stopped and got gas.

I was still late. I joined the meeting via conference call until I got to the office. It didn’t matter.

The world kept spinning. I participated meaningfully in my work.

And I filled my tank.

Are you running on empty today?

Running on empty is a cliche, but it took literally running my vehicle on empty for me to realize how off balance and empty I was running.

Can you relate?

No matter how hard we try to avoid it, there are times when life simply is chaotic and crazy.

Even in the midst of the chaos and crazy, filling our own tank is one of the most important things we can do.

Are you running on empty today? | strategysarah.com

 

3 reasons to fill your tank today

You can’t afford not to.

It’s easy to think, “Oh it can wait just a little longer” (whatever it is in your case). In reality, more often than not, delaying addressing something simply makes the problem worse.

In this case, it was still easily solvable, just more expensive. That’s not always the case.

I overpaid because I didn’t plan ahead and defaulted to the most convenient option in a desperate moment. A minor situation was more costly because I didn’t address it right away.

What do you need to address before it becomes more costly?

To reduce stress.

Don’t play a a game of “how far can this go.” You’ll give a situation far more mental weight than it deserves.

If I had simply prioritized getting gas earlier, I wouldn’t have had to think about it every time I got in the car, already stressed and running late.

I created additional, needless stress and decision-making fatigue at a time I couldn’t afford it.

I could have paid the same convenience fee three days earlier and avoided the repeated stress every time I got in the car and realized I’d forgotten yet again.

Where are you creating additional stress and fatigue that you can’t afford?

To get more done

I know, it’s counter-intuitive. One of the key reasons we don’t fill our tanks – literally or figuratively – is that we wrongly assume we can’t afford the time or money to take care of the tank-filling in the midst of our other responsibilities. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If we’re constantly running on empty, we have nothing left to give. Our focus inadvertently becomes on our own survival, even when we most want it to focus on other people, goals and responsibilities.

 

Be proactive and do something that fills your tank today – before you’re running on empty. You’ll be happier, less stressed, and ultimately far more productive.

How to defeat information overload and reduce stress

Sarah · Mar 18, 2018 · Leave a Comment

Spouse, parent, employee, business owner, entrepreneur, friend, volunteer. How many roles do you play? And how much information comes along with each of those roles?

Alerts, news articles, checklists, emails, junk mail, bills, phone calls, text messages, meeting invites, fliers, forms…all of it “must do now!” and “read immediately!”

We live in a day and age of ever expanding information flooding into our lives from every direction. It’s an overload on the best of days and beyond daunting on the worst of days. FOMO is a real thing.

What if there were steps we could take to defeat information overload?

We can’t stop the flood, but we can take preventative measures to reduce our mental load, give information a place to go and decrease stress.

Great tips! I definitely need to do more of #4.

How to defeat information overload and reduce stress

1. Reduce the amount of information coming in

  • Unsubscribe from email lists liberally.
  • Add yourself to do not call lists.
  • Remove yourself from physical mailing lists.
  • Think about whether you really need to attend that meeting you were invited to.

2. Know when to admit defeat and start over

  • Triage your email.
  • Triage your digital files.
  • Triage your desk and office. Do a clean sweep of paper and other clutter. Quickly put away or purge.

3. Have a clear system for information that does come in

  • Organize your desk and your office.
  • Set up a system to keep your email organized.
  • Set up a system to keep your digital files organized. 

RELATED: 7 ways to save information for later (and then actually use it) 

4. Automate, automate, automate

What are you still doing manually that can be automated? There are social media schedulers, budgeting apps (my favorite), online bill pay, automatic email sorting rules, and more.

RELATED: Save time: automate your social media 

5. Delegate

For what you can’t automate, what can you delegate to another human? What are you doing that someone else could or should be doing? What can you assign to someone else or hire to be done for you?

RELATED: Do you really need to do that? 

6. Stop doing things

In addition to delegation, what are you doing that simply doesn’t need to be done? There’s an adage that the amount of work will always expand to the number of hands available to do the work. One of the reasons companies restructure and reorganize is often to identify work being done that isn’t critical. Maybe it was critical at one point, and the business has shifted. Maybe there was always a better way to do the work, but there wasn’t a compelling reason to change the status quo.

RELATED: How hard is it for you to say no? 

RELATED: Four keys to getting stress levels under control

 

Unless you move to the middle of nowhere and become a hermit, you won’t ever fully stem the tide of information. I haven’t. What I have learned is to use these techniques to make the inflow manageable. You can too. Pick one way to reduce information overload and get started today. When you’ve made progress, move on to the next. You can live a calmer, peaceful life!

To make it easier to defeat information overload, you can now download a PDF checklist to print, review, and come back anytime you need a refresher. Enter your email address below and get started now!

[convertkit form=5184582]

How do you relieve stress? (plus four keys to getting stress levels under control)

Sarah · Dec 13, 2015 · Leave a Comment

Last week was one of those weeks. You know, the ones where it seems like anything that can go wrong will.

There was nothing truly major; it was just one thing after another after another.

How to relieve stress | strategysarah.com

We had:

  •  A stomach flu (which included a day out of daycare and parents trading off childcare based on who had meetings at what time)
  • A case of pink eye (which necessitated a first-thing-in-the-morning urgent care visit. Also, did you know that there are non-contagious strains of pink eye? Me either, but I sure was grateful mine was one of those!)
  • Forms, updates and billing challenges with health insurance, auto insurance, home insurance, and medical bills (with the usual array of endless paperwork, red tape and back-and-forth phone calls)
  • Signed papers for our new house, which officially closes next Tuesday (see: endless paperwork)
  • Then there were the Christmas parties (two one of us attended, two more that were skipped)
  • Normal home life (see: terrible two’s in full swing, and why didn’t anyone warn me that age four is harder than age two? Also, #kidsnotsleeping)
  • And slightly-busier-than-typical work weeks

On top of that there was the endless rain, and with it, the worse-than-normal traffic that I didn’t adequately prepare for. Then the fun experiences like calling an office that should have been open, only to find out they weren’t when I had planned around getting phone calls done in a certain time frame and other small annoyances that added up quickly.

Monday brought the greatest December 24-hour rainfall on record in Portland with 3.32 inches in a day. My attitude felt like the weather outside.

I’d love to say that I handled it all with grace and perspective.

I didn’t. 

I found myself stressed, tense enough that I was feeling physical pain and grumpy angry enough that I wasn’t all that pleasant to be around (Sorry, Charles).

By about Wednesday, I was calm enough to think, “Hmm, I clearly can’t control how my week is going, but I need to get my stress levels under control regardless of the circumstances!”

Four Ways to Get Stress Levels Under Control

1. Acknowledge that it’s hard – without any caveats – and then move on.

Please tell me I’m not the only one that needs to start here. If I don’t acknowledge what’s difficult in my life, and attempt to go straight to “Well, others have it worse off,” I just get angrier. Especially if it’s someone else trying to rush me along. Don’t make me feel like what I’m experiencing isn’t real. Are there times I need to buck up and get over it? Of course. But typically in the middle of it isn’t the best time to address that.
Note: There’s a difference between acknowledging something is hard to yourself or another trusted person and whining, complaining or wallowing in it. Also, acknowledging your own hard doesn’t minimize anyone else’s hard. 

2. Recognize what triggers you. 

Take a step back and look at the big picture. What’s really stressing you out? There are some obvious stress triggers that affect most of us: lack of sleep, poor nutrition, money.

Then there are stressors that may be huge for one personality type and non-existent for others. Know your personality and recognize what triggers you – so that you can do something about it.

Time stresses me out. Being on time specifically. Being late due to traffic, poor planning on my part, toddler tantrums, meetings that started late, meetings that ended late, or any other reason makes my neck knot up faster than you can say, “Merry Christmas.” I know this about myself.

Knowing this doesn’t prevent the stress, but it does help me to plan around it. How much earlier should I plan to leave the house to account for traffic and kids? (Then take that buffer time estimate and double it). What meetings can I reschedule in anticipation of others running late?

3. Take a deep breath and cut out the non-essentials. 

There were a few moments where there was nothing I could stop doing in that moment – but I could stop and take a few deep breaths.

Lack of sleep and lack of health meant my energy levels were low – and entirely used up on getting the essentials done. My eyes hurt, my body ached and I was exhausted. I let Charles take over as much of the home front as possible, let the laundry, dishes and emails pile up, and went to bed early.

The two Christmas parties that were skipped were work parties of mine. I would have liked to go, and it likely would have been good professionally to be there. But they weren’t essential.

4. Find reasons to be thankful. 

There’s a reason gratitude journals are so popular – intentionally focusing on being thankful and positive works. It took me a day or two longer than it should have to get to this point, but it really is true. All of our health concerns are minor. We have insurance – of all kinds. The hospital bill is from an injury Charlie fully recovered from. I am fully recovered from the auto accident. We didn’t have any flooding with the major rains this week, and we each had at least one co-worker who did. I truly do have much to be thankful for.

How do you get your stress levels under control? Any additional tips for me?

When you need to take your own advice

Sarah · Oct 14, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Do you ever have seasons where you realize that you really need to take your own advice?

Yeah. Me too.

In fact, it’s where I’m at right now.

I see the words, “project manager. problem solver. simplifier” on my website header and cringe, because there are too many areas of my life that don’t feel very managed, or simple, right now.

I’m not looking to turn this blog into therapy. But I do believe that it’s critical to examine how emotions and the practical play together – and how they both play into our work and productivity.

And since I’m right in the thick of it, we’re going to dive in right where I’m at. I’m hopeful that this will resonate with some of you in similar places.

My incredible life coach recently challenged me by asking me what advice I would give to myself, if I were my own client. Ouch. Yep. I’d give a whole lot of advice to someone else in my shoes, but when it’s my own life I’ve got all sorts of excuses or reasons I “can’t.”

The (Brief) Backstory

The last few years have been a bit of a whirlwind in all areas of life – for me personally, for my immediate family, and for my extended family.

And I’m realizing that it’s finally caught up to me.

I’ve always been the person that get’s the, “Oh, you’re strong,” “How do you do it all?” “Wait, you don’t cry,” and more.

Recently, my answer to “How do you do it all?” has fairly consistently been a flat, “I don’t.”

There are logical reasons for me to be overwhelmed. I’ve take a few “life stressor” tests lately, and have scored off the charts as high risk for stress-related illness. None of the “life stressors” we’re facing are earth shattering, and some have been great (hello children!).

Cumulatively though, they’ve left me with nothing left to give.

And for the person who loves to accomplish, to do, to power through – that’s been hard.

Where I’m at Right Now

I’ve said yes to things that sound great, and look like they should fit in my schedule – and would under normal circumstances. I forget that I’m not normal right now.

Last week I had a near breakdown in the grocery store over an overdue library book notification. That was the point that I knew something had to give. This past week, I’ve called in all my resources for help with daily life, sought a doctor to determine what, if any medical issues are at play, and have prioritized self-care (which in this case, looks a lot like basic survival).

In talking to my husband, I’m realizing that this has probably been building for awhile – longer than I was aware, and I just finally hit a breaking point.

I can’t stay here (nor do I want to), and this is definitely the worst shape I’ve ever been in mentally. But it’s also not the first time I’ve driven myself to the brink with stress, often largely self-induced.

The plan is to take the fall (or however long it takes) to focus on where I’m at, how I got here, specific tactics for reducing stress, focusing priorities, focusing on healthy self-care, where to go from here, and anything else that strikes my fancy. It will be a little bit of self-care, a little bit goal-setting, and a whole lot of balance.

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Welcome!

Sarah Parsons Hi, I'm Sarah and thanks for joining me! I believe that as working moms, we don't have to be exhausted trying to have it all. Sure, we juggle a lot. That just makes us expert project managers, problem solvers and simplifiers. And if you feel like you're not an expert at any of that, well, you're in the right place. It is possible to manage our time well and thrive - at work, home and play. Let's do this!
#3 is key.
This has been a game-changer for my afternoons! I'm so much more productive when I manage my energy and don't try to just power through the slump. #workingmom #manageyourenergy #timemanagement
31 Timesaving Tools, Tips & Templates | strategysarah.com

31 Timesaving Tips, Tools & Templates

Disclaimer

The views expressed on this site are those of Sarah Parsons only, and do not represent those of any employer or client past or present with whom I have worked.
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