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Time Management and Stress: Find the Balance to Descrease Distress and IncreaseAt first glance, there's an obvious link between time management and stress: lack of time management leads to stress. We all know that ineffectively managing your time leads to crises, last minute deadlines, more workload, worse work-life balance, no vacation, health problems, and many other situations that negatively impact your life. . . . . .But, it's actually a little more nuanced than that. Stress comes in two forms: distress and eustress. Distress is "bad stress." It's the stress you feel when you're burned out, overworked, fried, exhausted, "on your last nerve," drained. . .you get the idea. Eustress ("eu" means good or well in Greek) is "good stress." It's the type of stress you feel when you are "vitally engaged" in your life. Being vitally engaged, a term from positive psychology, occurs when you're using your talents and skills in an activity that's meaningful to you. It's the stress you feel when you get excited about tackling a new challenge; it's the stress allowing you to summon forth incredible energy for tasks that give your life meaning. The rest of this article will explore this link between time management and stress - both distress and eustress. But, here's the punchline:
Find The Right Amount of Time Management to Minimize DistressAs I mentioned briefly above, time management methods can certainly decrease your bad stress. But, after a certain point, too many time management methods actually add bad stress. If you try to micro-manage your life and plan everything - even unimportant things - you will actually make your life more complicated than it needs to be. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for time management. In fact, you'll find many other pages on this site devoted in some way to time management. (See "Related Articles at the bottom of this page.) But with time management, I say focus on the time management activities that give you "the most the bang for your buck." The graph below shows how this works:  As you get better at time management activities (y-axis), your level of bad stress goes down. But, after a point, it starts to go back up again. This change occurs when you spend time overplanning your calendar, planning more than about 70% of your time, managing minute details that really don't need attention, and other forms of micro-managing your life. So, find the balance.  More Importantly, Use Time Management to Increase Eustress in Your LifeAs I discuss in detail on the page on the importance of time management, time management is really life management. And the real value of time management lies in gaining the ability to proactively weave a life that you love - a life that aligns with your highest priorities and expresses your fullest potential in this world. So, practice enough time management methods to be able to build in activities that give your life meaning. These include your high priority items for each area of your life (family friends, work, spiritual, personal growth, recreation, renewal, etc) as well as things you just like doing. When we add the curve for eustress to the chart above, here's how that works: When you practice time management activities, the link between time management and stress is that your eustress goes up. Similarly to above, however, if you spend too much time micro-managing your life and overplanning, you will cause yourself unneeded stress. So, find the balance, or the "super-sweet spot." Above all, time management is just a tool. Use it and use it well to weave a life you love. But, once you've got it good enough, put it down and go live your life. I hope you've enjoyed this article about time management and stress. The ideas in here come from my own struggles with time management, as well as work with numerous coaching clients over the years as they wrestle their own time management and stress issues. When we first begin really practicing methods to tackle time management and stress issues, there's a temptation to try to plan "everything." We become stressed and frustrated that it's not perfect, so we give up and revert to old habits. So, my general rule on time management and stress is: do enough time management to minimize your distress and maximize your eustress. Remember that time management is just a tool, and when you're done put that tool down and go live the life have woven for yourself. Cheers, and good luck! Leave Time Management and Stress and Return to Time Management Resources Main Page Leave Time Management and Stress and Return to BPGR HomeRelated Articles:
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