Go Home Early!

I know that's what you wanted to hear on a Friday and I aim to please. We've all heard the adage work smarter not harder; as it turns out, there is truth to it...sort of. Perhaps the better adage should be 'work smarter AND harder, but in less time', but that is not quite as catchy. A study done by Dr. K. Anders Ericcson, published in the Psychological Review and recently recounted in the Business Insider, found that working intensly for short amounts of time produces more results than drudging along for an 8 hour day.

Why is this? Many of us (myself included) work at a desk all day from 9-5, but Facebook or an email account stays minimized in the bottom of  our computer screens. The temptation is simply too great not to check that new notification or most recent email that comes through. While technology is often to blame, so is our temptation to eavesdrop on that hallway conversation or swing by the bathroom one more time. In what I am sure is only the most rigorous of scientific studies, I read somewhere that the average worker spends more time in the bathroom than on vacation. That's either sad, incorrect or we have a nation of people needing to see a gastroenterologist. Regardless of what pulled us away, our concentration is then broken and it takes us another minute or two to regain our focus and peak performance. Not only have we lost time, we have lost quality of work as well.

Dr. Ericcson's research followed violin students and compared the "best students" with the "good students". What he found was that the best students set a specific goal to complete during practice and then take longer breaks (or even quit for the day). This is also true with successful authors, many of whom write in the morning hours, finish before lunch and spend the rest of the day in leisure. Not too shabby. If you are thinking that you are neither a concert violinist nor John Grisham, follow some of these tips to apply the theory into your work day:

• Don't check your email. Not right away at least. Choose a time in late morning or just after lunch to check your email and respond to critical ones. Which leads me to my next tip...
• Know which emails are critical. Responding to the Evite for your co-worker's barbeque invitation is not critical. Responding to an invitation to conduct a training for a client is critical.
• Choose what project you are going to work on and then clear your desk of anything else.
• Give yourself a specific goal of what you want to complete and then give yourself a break. For a short project, your goal might be to finish completely; for a longer project, your goal might be to give it one, concentrated hour of your time.
• When you are done, stop.

So, right after you finish reading this blogpost, get to work and enjoy your Friday a few hours earlier!

Whoa, Nelly!

Step away from your phone before you make that angry call. Do not push the send button on that email that YOU WROTE IN ALL CAPS. Hold on before you storm someone's office. I can almost guarantee: You. Will. Regret. It.

Why? As if it weren't bad enough that the nasty stress hormone cortisol can make us overweight, sickly and forgetful, it also appears as though it also makes us make bad decisions. If you think back to my last article , we know that cortisol makes some parts of our body's function slow down (digestion, memory, immune system). Cortisol also flips the switch from our rational, parasympathetic nervous system to our more lizard-brained sympathetic nervous system. This simply means that we have a hair-trigger response to perceived threat (real or not). We become myopic and primal. The best advice, most simple advice I've heard on how to circumvent this knee-jerk reaction to calling someone a Jerk is this: Whatever you feel compelled to do, don't.

Stiff Upper Lip

When asked for a stereotype of the British, my guess is you come up with exactly what I did: they keep a stiff upper lip. They do not show emotion in the face of adversity. They are resolute. We Americans, on the other hand, are often thought to be overly "in-touch" with our emotions. We are a nation of people laying on the therapy couch lamenting about our childhoods and bemoaning our "stress."

It surprised me to discover, then, that the British take workplace mental health and stress more seriously than we do. Indeed, in Britain, the law requires that companies there undergo regular stress audits. I ran across this trend quite by accident while looking for articles and resources on workplace mental health and burnout. What I noticed was that the majority of sites that appeared were based in the UK or Canada.

Does this refute their reputation for keeping a stiff upper lip? Or does it show that they are more willing to face a real challenge head on? Work stress is real and it is costly. A study at Middle Tennessee State University estimates that job-related stress cost American businesses over $300 billion a year in medical bills, recruiting and training. More striking, an estimated three-quarters of all doctors' visits are the result of stress related problems (from everything to diabetes, to addictions, to heart disease). The cost associated with all of those visits? About $71 billion dollars.

The Brits have realized what I hope we will soon realize: managing workplace stress isn't just a "feel good" measure, it makes real and measurable business sense.

Merge Ahead

I was driving through Charlottesville today and lamanting the local difficulty with merging. I'm not sure if it is the concept that people find difficult or just the actual practice of it. I know, I know...the merge lanes on 250 are short, visibility can be bad...I get it. This article is not actually about local driving practices. It is, however, about the importance of merging and what it might mean when we have trouble "merging" in our lives.

It takes timing to merge. Too fast and you can find yourself on someone else's tailpipe slamming on your breaks. Too slow and you'll wind up parked on the shoulder of the road. Too often we are either driving as fast as we can to meet deadlines and obligations or stuck in neutral avoiding those same deadlines and obligations. To merge in life we need to become sensitive to the timing both in and around us. Are we giving ourselves the emotional and physical fuel that is necessary when we need to speed up a bit in life? Do we know when to slow down and not micro-manage a situation? Just like the short merge lanes on St. Rt. 250 in Charlottesville, we feel like we have to make a quick decision: slam on the breaks or push the gas to the floor. At some point as drivers, however, we must learn to trust our skills and trust our judgement as drivers and make that move. So it is in life: trust yourself to know what you need and what you have to give to a situation. And then ease on the gas and merge.

Blame Game

When it comes to workplace stress, it is an understandable reaction to blame someone or something else for that stress. After all, it's called "workplace stress" so it must be work's fault. A person experiencing workplace stress or burnout is likely to fall into the trap of blaming the boss, team leader or co-workers for that stress. It's exactly that, however: A Trap! Blaming creates a sense of being stuck and helpless. Anytime we feel helpless, we begin to see ourselves as powerless and unable to change our situation. It is difficult, if not impossible, to work from a position of empowerment and be proactive when we identify ourselves as a victim.

As a side note, blaming triggers stress hormones like adrenaline. Adrenaline is useful when it is from challenge-focused, primary arousal (survival situations, competition and even job situations like a big presentation); however, long-term affects of adrenaline from secondary arousal (vague, persistent worrying) eventually depletes a person's energy and can actually damage one's health. Simply put, no one can stay in "fight or flight" mode indefinitely. It's exhausting!

But what if my boss really is a huge jerk?

Fair enough. There are plenty of people in the world who seem to serve the sole purpose of making life difficult. It is true that we have very little, if any, control over how people behave. That does not mean we are trapped. It means we have difficult choices. A person might be in a miserable situation at work, but that pain seems more tolerable to him or her than the alternative. If a person allows those other choices to remain vague, he is once again allowing that secondary, useless form of adrenaline to take hold. The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook outlines five questions to ask yourself to help identify your actual choices:

1) What specific steps could you take to change a major stress producer at work? Notice that the question doesn't ask how you could eliminate stress altogether...focus on one major stress.

2) What would you risk in attempting that change?

3) What steps could you take to change jobs altogether?

4)What would you risk in attempting to make that change?

5) What steps could you take to change your perception of a risk so it seems more tolerable to you? i.e. if the risk is not having any idea how to begin a new job search, would you be willing to meet with a recruiter or career counselor to gain advice and insight?

The outcome of these questions will either be "Yes, I am ready to make some changes in my work life" or "No, I am going to choose to live with the current conditions because it still seems less painful than the alternative. I may choose differently in the future." Both are fair and appropriate answers. It will vary depending on your situation. Asking questions like the ones above is not a one time questionnaire. Ask yourself these questions every month or so. Do the answers change? Has your tolerance for risk changed with the evolving situation? When we recognize the choices at our disposal (whether we are ready to take them or not) it creates a sense of empowerment. We then move from the trapped victim to the empowered person making the best choice for the current situation.

Don't Assume Yourself into Stress!

When workload increases, it is natural to experience stress. Often what creates that stress is when assumptions (also called "faulty cognitions") trigger painful emotional reactions. Take the following scenario:

Mike looks at the report that he has been asked to do with dread. A few months ago this task would have been outside of his job description, but he's been required to take on more as the company has reduced staffing. He feels insecure in his ability to do the task correctly. As he stares at the unfinished work, he thinks, "I've got to complete this report perfectly or I'm going to end up with a pink slip on my desk." His second thought is, "My boss is doing this to me and it's not fair." Often, the third thought (either consciously or subconsciously) is, "I'm trapped here!"

The first thought Mike has creates anxiety, his second thought makes him angry and his third triggers depression. Much of Mike's stress is caused not by the task itself, but on the assumptions about the task. He has made two critical faulty cognitions:

1) His first assumption (faulty cognition) is that the report must be perfect. The trouble with "perfect" is that it is very hard to quantify. Whether the goal of "perfect" was self-imposed or demanded by the boss, it is necessary to define what "perfect" looks like. If it means that budgeting figures in the report must be accurate, that is a more manageable goal than "perfect" because it is targeted and verifiable. It is just like a child afraid of a dark closet. The fear of the unknown is more frightening than the known. Define the goal of the task specifically.

2) His second faulty cognition is that the boss will fire him if the report isn't perfect. Is this a realistic assessment of what might happen for Mike's situation? Perhaps...but perhaps not. Being realistic also means being specific. Being specific reduces the vague sense of doom. If Mike can slow his thinking down, he might begin to assess his situation more accurately: "If I don't get those figures right the first time around, I'm going to have to stay late tonight. I had hoped to get out on time to meet friends for dinner. I'll be disappointed if I can't, but I can manage that."

Any time you begin to have vague, catastrophic fears about consequences of missing your mark at work, remind yourself of what you know is a realistic consequence. If you don't know...FIND OUT! Ask your boss or team leader what would happen if you failed to meet a deadline, turned in a report with errors or had a poor performance in a meeting.

Reducing assumptions will reduce anxiety. The snowball stops rolling; the angry act of blaming and the depressed feeling of being trapped don't have to occur.

Up Next: I've passed anxiety and I'm already knee deep in blaming! NOW what do I do???