We see the impact of COVID and lockdown on stress levels everywhere, but we can’t see all of it and we haven’t even started to see it its full effect (wait 5 years). So there’s that. I’m not going to add my voice to the plethora of punditry about how to manage yourself etc. Do the best you can, follow your instinct, stay safe, stay sane. 

I want to talk about one dimension, stress at work. I don’t want to focus here so much on being more resilient, I want to share some ideas for dealing with the external causes of the stress at work, which most commonly cause a sense of overload – too much, too hard and/or too soon.   

This is a personal reflection on how I have reduced my workload and increased my contribution. Let’s focus on too much to do. Actually, the real issue here is confusion about priority: we’ve always got too much to do, what stresses us is feeling that we have to do it all.  

How to get help for work 

At a high level this is about building a team of people who make up for your weak areas and allow you to focus on your contribution. At a more immediate level, I just want to emphasise how powerful I have found simply asking for help. For you that might mean talking to your manager or a colleague and getting them to help you delete some items. For me it means asking someone to do some of the things on my list, and longer term, it might mean we need to recruit someone. “Can you help me please” may be the most powerful words in the English language. Use them. 

How to let go of work 

One of my philosophies is to only do what only I can do. That cuts out a lot of stuff, and when we put this to people in our programme it often raises some really good reflection about how they actually add value. Of course, I do other things to help out the business, like taking responsibility for driving our export strategy. But I figure that I can do that as well as my business partner, which frees him to do things that definitely only he can do.  

I have always liked the idea that when I let go of who I am I become who I might be. It’s turned out to be true in my life every time I’ve worked out how to do that, and I’ve always ended up creating space for much greater value (and satisfaction).

How to delegate work 

Next is delegate. If you’re working 60 hours a week, you’re doing someone else’s job. Give it back to them. If they’re not there, go and hire them. You’re taking someone else’s opportunity for growth. Get out of the way.  

Here’s a thought: Take the task that you don’t like doing and are not very good at (likely to be the same things) and give it to someone who enjoys that kind of thing or for whom it is a welcome challenge. Then do the same thing for the things you’re good at but don’t like doing. Then the things you’re good at and that you like doing but someone else could do them with no more than 25% loss in quality. 

How to prioritise work 

Finally, prioritise. Use tools like urgent/important, the 4 Disciplines of Execution and Asana to drive a ranking order – but then stick to it (that’s actually the real trick). I’ve always liked the 3 Horizon methodology: fix the core, create the new, change the game. In terms of time and activity, I try to be 70% on horizon 1, 20% on horizon 2 and 10% on horizon 3.  

You may have to clear out some horizon 1 stuff to make room for the other horizons. See above.