Time and Goal Management

Top of the day to you,

It is no longer unusual to hear about an apparently healthy individual who suddenly wobbled, fell down and then died. In this season  ‘slumping’ seems to be trending and stress is a major reason.

Knowing what gets you stressed up, understanding how it affects your body and learning ways to eliminate (or at least minimize) them will lay the foundation for ‘health-full’ life. In our previous letter, we gave you the Perceived Stress Test to help you understand how different situations affect you  and your stress level. Everybody needs their personal guide to ‘De-stressing.’

When you suddenly realize that your shoulders have become heavy and tight (the weight of the world is literally on your shoulders) and you have no immediate recollection of being involved in any strenuous activities, you might just be experiencing the body’s reaction to stress. The neck-shoulder muscle tension,  the pain you feel in your arm when you want to lift an item, the sudden wave of tiredness that comes when you are about to stand or sit(being woozy), the dull  headache in the front of your head are all  symptoms of stress- they are physical responses  which unfortunately, we often wave  aside as nothing.

Learning effective time and goal management skills will go a long way to reduce worry and anxiety- a stressor! A habit as simple as writing a “To Do” list daily will help you take better control of your day by helping you prioritize. You will be amazed how different things look on paper as opposed to inside your mind. A ‘To Do’ list will also help you stay on track with much less to remember-another stressor!

We all have 24 hours in a day; this is time enough for most of us to finish our daily tasks. Keeping a time log is a helpful way to determine how you are using your time. We often  spend more time than we need to on tasks because we do not allocate specific time slots to the tasks. To successfully manage your time you need to get rid of all distractions(including that phone) and focus on the task at hand. Rushing through your  day due to poor planning is a stressor which would usually result in poor performance- another stressor!