3 Ps to de-stress your life

Cheryl Knowlton knows “busy.”

In addition to a successful real estate business, she also runs a family that includes nine children, serves in the presidency of her stake Relief Society, is the president of the Utah Chapter of the Women’s Council of REALTORS® and teaches continuing education courses to fellow REALTORS®.

And to manage this schedule — and minimize the impending stress — she gets technical.

“I can’t live without my BlackBerry,” she says. “My mental notes aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.”

So Knowlton includes each appointment during the week (and reviews them each day), prioritizing tasks as she goes.

Good planning and time management limit stress — and distress — in a businessperson’s life.
Here are three areas that will help you complete your never-ending lists — sans panic attack.

Prioritize
Besides her task list, appointments and phone numbers, Knowlton’s organization duo (BlackBerry and day planner) also includes a list of Knowlton’s roles and where they fall in importance. She refers to this list when scheduling her time.

“My roles are prioritized,” Knowlton says. “I will always pick my kids (over work).”

Once priorities are set, you can fulfill responsibilities based on those priorities.

“A lot of people make ‘to-do’ lists, but FranklinCovey encourages people to make task lists with priorities, where each task has a value,” says Matt Paulk, sales manager for FranklinCovey Products in Orem.

One way to determine a task’s priority is to determine the consequences of not completing it: The more dire the consequences, the higher the priority.

“You need to understand that realistically, you might not get everything on your task list completed,” Paulk says. “Prioritizing helps you accomplish the most important things first.”

Plan
With general priorities set, make good use of planning time.

“I set aside time each week to look and make sure everything fits,” Knowlton says. “Then I plan more specifically each day.”

Part of the planning includes time for each role — and one of those roles should be fun and relaxation.

Knowlton’s busy life includes nothing work-related on Saturdays. That’s when she spends time with her family.

“On Saturdays, I don’t accomplish anything — and that’s by design,” she says. “I detox and shut down. That’s when I go to BYU games and scream my guts out.”

It’s this planned “time away” that allows Knowlton to maintain her intensity through the rest of her busy week.

One of the benefits of working effectively and efficiently is that it makes a person more employable after lay-offs.

“We’re seeing people find more planning more helpful,” Paulk says. “People want to be more effective and bring more to employers.”

Pursue
After priorities are declared and plans are made, pursue the peace that comes from knowing you’re doing what you should do, when you should do it.

“I don’t carry a lot of guilt when I’m not with my family all the time, because I know I’m meeting their expectations. I’m at the events I need to be at, and they know I put them first,” Knowlton says.

However, Knowlton also knows she’s not always privy to every important event during her weekly planning time. She — like each of us — has things come up. That’s why the plans need priority and flexibility.

“When the phone rings, take just a minute to determine if it’s important,” Paulk says. “If it is, deal with it. If it isn’t, move on.”

Ever the good planner, Knowlton even schedules times to put out potential fires. And if nothing comes up?

“I do a happy dance,” she says.

STRESS FOR SUCCESS
While planning can help people avoid stressful situations, uncontrollable events creep in and affect business pros constantly. Whether worrying about the general state of the world’s economy or dealing with a break-in at your place of business, it’s your reaction that counts.
Below are five tips to manage stress from Marlene Joyner, coordinator of the employee assistance program for the Urban South Region of Intermountain Healthcare.

Understand stress isn’t all bad. “We need stress in our lives to motivate us,” Joyner says. “Stress gets us out of bed in the morning. When we don’t learn to balance that part of our life, then it turns to distress. You need a happy little balance there.”

Take a breath. When distress sets in and your heart rate escalates, take a minute and breathe. “When you do deep, diaphragmatic breathing, it begins to slow down the body,” Joyner says. “If you notice shoulders tensing or teeth clenching, you can regain control over it.”

Check your perspective. “Much of the stress comes from your response to it. The event is the event. You create the psychological response to the event. Learn to shift perspective and turn the situation positive.”

Figure out what you can control. “People worry about the economy or what gas costs,” Joyner says. “You don’t have any control over those things. But you do control where you’ll put your money from your paycheck or how much you’ll drive. Understand what you can control and deal with that.”

Simplify your life. If your life is so busy you don’t have time to cope, just say no. “Delegate and simplify,” she says. “Take some things off your plate.”

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