Personal Skill Development: Stress & Stress Management
Introduction
This post is
written in response to a self-exploratory course that I am undertaking now with
my Daffodil University colleagues. In lesson 7 we are asked to go through this
site: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/personal-skills.html and choose a
skill that I want to develop myself.
I want to see myself effectively coping with stress, managing stress and
finding ways to reduce unnecessary or unhealthy levels of stress. This is the
one personal skill that I would like to develop.
My stress is mostly personal stress which is caused by the nature of my
work, plans of changes in my life or personal problems, and leads to anxiety,
tension, insomnia and tiredness.Plan
Therefore, I have
prepared this plan to develop this skill in myself.
1. Learn to recognize when I'm stressed: Sometimes when I am stressed, I don't know
what is causing it. Even when I try to relax, I have the thoughts of unfinished
work in my mind which hinders me to truly relax. Thus identifying if it's work
or any personal issue bothering me, is the first step.
2. Learn to relax: I already knew about breathing exercises or focusing on
breathing. But after studying the site I came to know about 'progressive
relaxation' which is tightening each part of the body's muscles and relaxing
them. I used both yesterday and found them very effective.
3. Time management: I have real issues with time management. I tend to
procrastinate and leave the more prioritized work out until the deadline. If it
is something related to me and there is no official deadline, I tend to avoid
it. These three things can be done to maximize the use of my time:
a. Have a
priority matrix to organize tasks into appropriate categories.
b. Stop
multi-tasking.
c. Minimize
distraction.
4. Reduce the demands on yourself: I have to say NO when I am sure that taking
up another task will only burden me more.
5. Work-life balance: I strongly feel that I have the least work-life balance now.
For this the following has to be done:
a. Keep a
diary for a week, and set out how much time I spend on each activity, both at
work and outside.
b. Do
strategic thinking about where I am and where I want to be.
c. Bring changes
to get from ‘now’ to ‘future’. |
| Mindmap for Stress Management |
Goal
I will start keeping the diary for assessing my
work-life scenario at present from 22nd November to 28th November 2017. This
will help me realize how I am spending my time both at work and at home. Based
on this I will calculate where I am now and where I wan to be during the
weekend 30th and 31st December 2017. According to that I will decide on the
changes that I want to bring in my life.
Steps to Monitor my Progress
1. I will prepare a priority matrix and keep a
track of my tasks and regularly update it.
2. I will be regular in exercising and relaxing.
3. I will reduce the amount of office work (like
checking scripts and class preparation) at home, and ask my family members to
remind me so when I do it.
