You Can be Great If You Really Want To

Know a job is really done by using completion criteria.

Define what successful completion of each task entails. Specify not only when the task is due, but also what standard must be met. You don’t want to tell someone who has worked really hard to complete a task that they misunderstood and you wanted a sledge hammer rather than an ordinary hammer.

The need to have due dates associated with tasks is well understood, but it’s still really hard to get a real commitment to a date. Meetings frequently end with a list of action items, each carefully associated with an owner, but with a mumble about setting due dates later. Given that most people who are assigned these tasks are extremely busy, and given human nature’s procrastinating tendencies, “later” is quite likely to become “never.” Be vigilant and persistent about setting due dates. Even if they’re tentative and you have to change them later, get something down as soon as the task is identified. Then follow up to make sure the task gets completed, rescheduled, reassigned or, if appropriate, dropped. The key is to drop tasks on purpose rather than let them slip away unnoticed until the next crisis.

Establishing an agreed-to due date is a good start, but it’s not sufficient. We need completion criteria that tells us when the task has been completed properly, i.e., what the quality requirement is. For example, suppose someone is assigned the task to design the reports you will use to track how effective your problem solution is. Is the task complete when the report designer says it is, or must the reports meet some other standard, such as answering a specific list of questions, enabling a decision to be made or being accepted by the project sponsor?

Using completion criteria can help avoid misunderstandings and delays.

Copyright 2008. Jeanne Sawyer. All Rights Reserved.

In short, stress management tips are something that just about every one of us has to deal with. We need this because of the huge amount of responsibility, worry, and need that we have placed on our shoulders. Today, most than 2/3 of all Americans say that they deal with stress, in some form, every single day. Stress management tips can help you to notice the amount of stress that you are under and help you to effectively treat the stresses so that you can better your life in the long haul.

Stress Management Tips To Incorporate

Here are some easy stress management tips to place into your life for a bit more help:

1. Manage your life’s tasks on paper. If you feel that you do not have time to get everything written down, make the time. Use a date book, a calendar or any other form of paper and jot down all that you need to do each day. When you do this, you will develop a true sense of what has to be done, what does not, and you will stop forgetting about things and worrying about them.

2. Block time for nothing. You need to commit to giving yourself a block of time, a few hours at the least, per week to just do nothing. When you follow this stress management tip, you will feel relaxed and therefore you will be able to focus better in the long run. In turn, you can do more by taking a bit of a break.

3. Stress relief games and stress relief products are on the market to help. Consider a stress relief ball for example. Placing this in your hand and working it can help you to dispel all of that nervous energy that truly plagues your life style. You can commit to having a better overall experience because your body can better concentrate.

4. Ask for help. If you do have too much on your shoulders, you need to ask for help from your loved ones, by hiring someone or just learning to say no. Here’s why. When you try to do it all yourself, stress builds up to a much too high amount. Your physical condition will worsen and eventually, everything will collapse. Ask for help or just do not commit to so many things.

5. Seek out medical attention or alternative treatments. These stress relief tips can help you to find the inner peace that is incredibly important at this time in your life. Things like yoga and meditation can truly help you to relax and expel stress. You may also need to seek medication if your stress levels have gone so far as to cause physical pain to you.

These stress management tips are just the start of the things that you can do to better your life. Commit to just a few of them, or start with just one. Doing so can allow you to find a bit more sanity in a world that is overly demanding on each one of us. The physical effects of stress are much too harsh for you to avoid.