Reduce Stress At Work-Use More Paper-Based Productivity

I use a task management system which I have been improving since 2007. Over that time I have crafted it to be primarily electronic because of the ease of note transfer, the ease of moving priorities around, and the ability to sync across mediums.

I have started to feel that the electronic-based process is creating more stress.

There is not enough friction in my electronic process so it leads me to work franticly without taking time to stop, breathe, and think. I am quickly moving things around and checking things off. I also have a tendency to make my electronic to-do lists longer than they should be. It is easy to add a task and move it if I cannot do it. It is easy to make a near-infinite electronic queue of to-dos.  I try and squeeze more in than I have time. Then when I don’t get all of the actions done I am stressed and feel like I have let myself down.

I still have an electronic capturing method but I have added a paper element back into it.

At the end of each day, I review my calendar for the next day and write down each appointment in my notebook. I then determine how much time I have available outside of meetings in my calendar to work on items from my task list and I also determine how the available time is split up. It is hard to do big thinking in 30-minute slivers. I write this down too. Then I review my tasks and write down what is reasonable to accomplish the following day.

Writing all of this down may seem like I am duplicating work but it forces me to consider each of the tasks I am planning, plus it is tedious writing down 20 tasks by hand so I don’t do it.

The other benefit is that it takes me away from the computer which is a stress manufacturing machine. When I am not working from the computer I am less likely to think about checking email. I can avoid opening that door and letting the email zombies in.

I have been doing this for a couple of weeks and I have noticed that I’m less stressed, and less tired every day, and I have breathing room. I feel less frantic about all of the things I am trying to check off every day. There is a calmness to it. While I am working with this process the pull to check my inbox is less strong. Finally, it is allowing me to adhere to my overall task management process like daily inbox zero more often.

Are you using a primarily electronic system for managing tasks? Is it your email? Maybe you should consider moving to a more paper-based system to allow you to plan to do the important work and be more calm in your work.