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For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

A clue to the solution

Since the expe­ri­ence of hav­ing con­trol is close­ly linked to the feel­ing of stress (which was also shown in a recent study by Rathakr­ish­nan et al.), one of the keys you can use to reduce stress is to do some­thing that makes you feel more in control.

The ques­tion is what that is – for you.

Do this

If you’re in a hec­tic peri­od right now (as many are) and feel­ing stressed, take a moment to con­sid­er what would help you feel more in con­trol of your work situation.

• Is it get­ting a com­plete overview of every­thing you have to do, because right now it feels like every­thing is ​“float­ing around” and you’re afraid you’ll miss some­thing? Then emp­ty your mind of every­thing you’re think­ing you mustn’t for­get and add it to your to-do list togeth­er with any oth­er notes, scraps of paper, and ​“remem­ber this” items that have end­ed up somewhere.
• Is it get­ting rid of some tasks, because your work­load is far too high right now and you fear it will end bad­ly? Skim through all your tasks and look for ones that aren’t real­ly with­in your area of respon­si­bil­i­ty and those that don’t con­tribute to the goals you’re respon­si­ble for. Ask a col­league to help you with these or ask your man­ag­er to del­e­gate them to some­one else – at least for now. Maybe they don’t need to be done at all any­more, when all is said and done?
• Is it get­ting clar­i­ty on your actu­al dead­lines in the near future, because right now it feels like every­thing is due at the same time and ​“as soon as pos­si­ble” is noth­ing you can build a sta­ble plan on? Ask those you’re deliv­er­ing to what the real, absolute dead­line is for the tasks. Draw a time­line and mark where they fall in rela­tion to each oth­er. If you need to sched­ule blocks of work in your cal­en­dar to make it on time, do it.
• Is it get­ting some breath­ing room from con­stant­ly respond­ing to emails and chats, because right now you can’t ful­ly focus on that exten­sive task you need to com­plete, since you feel like you ​“should” be in chat and email all the time? Check with your col­leagues what a rea­son­able response time is between you and toward oth­ers – your cus­tomers, for exam­ple. If you clar­i­fy an upper lim­it, you’ll imme­di­ate­ly know how much ​“back-cov­ered buffer time” you have to focus on com­plex tasks that aren’t about email­ing and chatting.
• Or is it some­thing else entirely?

You help yourself

If you fig­ure out what makes you feel more in con­trol of your work sit­u­a­tion, it becomes eas­i­er to see what you can do to give your­self exact­ly that. Instead of con­tin­u­ing to stress and hop­ing it will soon pass (“by sum­mer, sure­ly!”), you do some­thing con­crete to feel bet­ter now.

What is it for you?

What makes you feel in con­trol of your work sit­u­a­tion? Write to me and tell me. I see what helps me and those I help with struc­ture, and I’m curi­ous about what it is for you. 

(Have you tried writ­ing up all the thoughts and issues that are clut­ter­ing your mind when you have a lot going on? Learn more from what Ylva wrote to me and shared about how an increas­ing­ly white white­board relieves stress!)