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How To Eliminate Stress by Eliminating Responsibilities- Use a Time Management Chart

September 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

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By Sheri McConnell -

Know When It Is Time To Eliminate Responsibilities

Feeling stressed lately? Too many to-do’s on your to-do list? If you are doing too much for too many people, you must eliminate some of the stress in your life. Start by eliminating the responsibilities that do not directly contribute to the top three goals in your life. Many areas of your life will improve immediately. Lightening your load will benefit you by improving the quality of your health and your relationships. Reevaluate your responsibilities using a time management chart at least twice a year.

Start By Writing Down Your Goals

Before you can begin to eliminate responsibilities, you need to decide what your top three goals are. They do not need to be in order of importance. Mine are: 1) Nurture myself, 2) Spend quality time with my family, and 3) Grow my businesses.

Create Your Time Management Chart

Your chart will consist of three columns: a list of all your current responsibilities, the approximate number of hours each responsibility takes during a given month (estimate), and which of the three goals the responsibility is helping you to accomplish (if any!). You will find that many of your current responsibilities are not helping you to accomplish one of the three goals. These are the easiest to eliminate or to delegate. Learning how to delegate is important because it allows you additional time you need to focus on your three goals. You can delegate a lot: my youngest daughter folds the dish- and face-cloths in our house while her two older sisters handle the rest of the laundry. Here is a partial example of my time management chart. (Note: You can create a table with the correct number of rows and three columns in Microsoft Word under the “table” drop-down menu. Mine appears in a listing format below.)

Column One –> Responsibility

PTA Board
Running my local women’s group
Taking my children to and from soccer practices and games
Spend 1 hour each day exercising
Spend 6 to 8 hours, Monday thru Friday, working my businesses
Cleaning the house/laundry and grocery shopping.

Column Two –> Number of Hours per Month (Respectively)

5
5 – 10
20
30
128 – 160
20 – 30

Column Three –> Goal That I Am Accomplishing, If Any (Respectively)

Not helping me accomplish one of my 3 goals
Not helping me accomplish one of my 3 goals
Not helping me accomplish one of my 3 goals
#1 – Nurture myself
#3 – Grow my businesses
Not helping me accomplish one of my three goals.

The Elimination Process

After reviewing my complete chart, I decided to step down from my local women’s group responsibilities and from my children’s PTA Board. I decided to delegate more household responsibilities. Completing this chart every six months allows you to assign tasks based on the new skill levels of the family. Children develop quickly and can take on more chores as they grow. Doing everything for your children doesn’t help them–if anything it hinders them in adulthood. Delegating household chores to them is a win-win for everyone. I also sat down with the other adult in my life (my husband) and convinced him to take on more responsibility. Not an easy task! I know my chart (the complete version) made it much easier for him to see where he could easily pitch in. He chose grocery shopping and driving the children to and from their events. Create your own time management chart and “take back” at least 10-15 hours of your life each month. You will be less stressed and happier. I know I was!

Want To Use This Article In Your Ezine or Website? You have my permission, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Sheri McConnell is the President of the National Association of Women Writers ( http://www.NAWW.org). She helps women writers and entrepreneurs discover, create, and profit from their intellectual knowledge! Free reports for writers available with subscription to NAWW Weekly. Sheri lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband Seth and their four children. Contact her at  naww@onebox.com or her toll free number at 866-821-5829.

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Filed Under: Emotional Health, Health, Physical Health Tagged With: , , ,

Stress Management – 3 Steps to Eliminate Holiday Stress

December 10, 2008 By 1 Comment

By Linda Hampton -

Much of our holiday stress is self induced. We all love the holidays and want to them to be a truly enjoyable and rewarding experience. We tend to spend a great deal of time and effort engaging in various activities trying to make the time period extra special. Our desire to have the best holidays possible often delivers an ironic just like O’Henry’s Gift of the Magi. Instead of enjoying the holiday season, we spend our holiday season stressed and worried about how to make our holidays perfect.

One of the chief causes of holiday stress is that gnawing feeling that the things you must do are going to outstrip your available time. Shopping, cooking, packing, wrapping and decorating suddenly fill what used to be your free time.

There are a few basic steps you can take to make your to-do list seem more manageable and to reduce your stress level.

1. Adjust Your Expectations

An often overlooked way to deal with holiday stress is simply readjusting your expectations of the holidays. The media and advertising industries lead us to believe that any holiday celebration that doesn’t end up resembling a Norman Rockwell print is a failure. This of course, is not the case. It’s fine to strive for a wonderful holiday season, but it’s not necessary to create the Perfect Holiday nor is it possible. Instead of concerning yourself with every detail, you can reduce your stress level by focusing on the parts of the holidays that are most meaningful and important to you and placing less emphasis on other aspects of the season.

2. Start Early

Here’s a rule about holiday stress we shouldn’t break – start early. We often laugh at the fact Christmas decorations tend to go up in shopping malls right after Halloween decorations disappear. Although we don’t necessarily need to take the not-so-subtle message of holiday commercialization to heart, we can learn quite bit from the early decoration trend. By starting our holiday preparations early, you can reduce the amount of pressure and stress you experience during the season.

3. Follow Santa’s Lead

Santa Claus, the song tells us, makes a list and checks it twice. If he left delivery of millions of toys up to his memory, he would probably be the North Pole’s most stressed resident. You can learn an important lesson from Santa Claus and can create your own organized list of holiday tasks and chores. By carefully assessing your holiday needs and expectations, starting early on the holidays and keeping an organized to-do list, you can make your holidays a pleasure!

And now I’d like to offer you more stress relief techniques that get results? Learn how to dramatically improve your stress relief results by claiming your FREE 5 Part customized home study course. You get instant access at http://www.keytostressfreeliving.com
From Linda Hampton RN, MSN A Wellness and Stress Management Coach

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Filed Under: Irene's Articles, Self Improvement, Stress Management Tagged With: , ,