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My little girl at my university campus

Monday, November 13, 2017

Stress & Stress Management

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.

I am determined to bring positive changes in my life so that I can work with my full potential and improve for better.

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