Useful tips

To make your life easier. Today

Often, when experiencing bouts of Stress, Anxiety, or Worry being clear on what you can control will help alleviate negative feels and emotions.

This happens because, when you're in control, you can move forward towards the things, experiences and outcomes you want, instead of being at the mercy of things happening around you. Why not try this, to help take control, today:

Write down the thing causing you Stress, Anxiety or Worry
List the things you have absolute control over
Write the list of things you have zero control over. Put this list in the bin. You can't do anything about it. So energy spent on this is, quite literally, a waste.
Now take your list of things you have absolute control over and for each thing decide what action you will take to get the outcome, or result you want. This is your 'to-do' list.
Work your way through your to-do list, confident in the knowledge that you are doing the things you can, and nothing else is relevant.

Whether small, large or life-changing, we're all presented with problems to solve every day. This is normal, and many problems work themselves out fairly easily. Unfortunately, when problems arise that seem 'unsolvable', then it's easy to feel overwhelmed, worried and stressed. Here's some easy steps to follow to start solving any problem.

1. Analyse the impact: What's happening to you as a result of the problem? Being able to clearly articulate how the problem is impacting you is useful to understand how serious the problem is, and how urgently it should be solved.

2. Track back: From start to finish, track how the problem has arisen, how it's grown and how it's come to impact you. Now you have information to help you intervene, and stop the problem impacting you, or stop it being a problem altogether.

3. Intervene, purposefully: Now you know what's causing the problem, choose where you're going to intervene to stop it happening. Then do it!

This simple approach to planning and organising tasks has been part of some of the most widely delivered training programmes in the world. It's a sure-fire way to make sure you get things done, and get the most important things done first:

1 - At the end of your day, set aside 10 minutes. Only 10 minutes, no more.

2 - Use your 10 minutes to write a list of things you need to do tomorrow, or after tomorrow

3 - Next, rank each item on your list in order of importance, with 1 being 'if this isn't done, it will have the biggest impact on me' all the way to a ranking for 'if this doesn't get done, it doesn't really matter'.

4 - Now, rank each item in order of urgency. With 1 being the most urgent, 2 being the second-most urgent, and so-on.

5 - Now, write tomorrow's to-do-list. Usually (but not always) you can quickly add together the two rankings and the lowest-score should be top of your list. E.g. - 1 for importance + 1 for ugency = 2. So this should come top of your list.

6 - Be realistic. The likelihood is you'll only have time to do around 5-10 things (including some short, easy things) tomorrow. So don't overwhelm yourself with a list of 25 things.

7 - Repeat. Daily. I do this every single day and it gives me such clarity knowing that when I wake up, I've already got my to-do list organised. And to set up for the day, I take 10 minutes at the start of the day to review it. And may re-prioritise to get some 'quick-wins' from the middle of my list in the first 15 minutes of my day so I start the day ahead of myself.

Disagreements, conflict, frustration or even dispair can be solved by simply 'listening'. Chances are, you're now thinking 'but I'm a good listener' - and you're probably wrong. Not many people genuinely listen. They may hear what is being said, and often even take away some element of understanding but most of the time they're 'listening' they're just waiting for their turn to speak. So if you want to master your ability to communicate, develop deep rapport and strong relationships, make it easier to overcome conflict and disagreement, master your listening. Simply, listen to understand. Try this:

1 - When the other person is talking, do nothing else but pay attention to the person speaking. Hear the words they use. Hear how they're speaking. Look at them while they're speaking and observe how their face and body is moving while speaking.

2 - Use the information to form your first understanding of what they're trying to tell you

3 - Repeat a little back to them, maybe starting with "I want to be sure I understand you. You said XXX and I take this to mean XXX. Have I got that right?" This gives them a chance to correct your understanding.

4 - Now, because you understand what they've said, in full, you can give a much more meaningful, thoughtful and appropriate response.

5 - Do this for every conversation.

Over time you'll notice that in listening to people to understand them, you spend far less time talking, or waiting to talk, and the people you speak to can leave conversations with you much more appreciative of you, your time, and your input.