Fire-fighting and stress September 3, 2009
Problems occur regularly. Every single problem that occurs adds to your stress. Some people are able to anticipate these events, and prepare contingences. If you’re good at this, great, keep doing it! If not, you the following few tips might well help.
The best sequence to run through when your schedule has suddenly been ruined by an unforeseen problem is as follows
1. Stop and take a breath. Allow the initial biological effects of the shock and stress to recede. Take time to think.
2. Write down the problem before taking any action. This gives you extra time to breathe and will make sure that the problem is not forgotten as you attempt to fix it. That may sound strange, but how often do we go off half prepared, stressing over something that isn’t a real problem?
3. Get the facts of the problem. Just the facts you need to make the decisions now.
4. Delegate the tasks to achieve a solution where possible.
5. Develop a system to effectively deal with this problem in future. Recurring problems should be dealt with once, twice at most. After the second time, your should not have to deal with it again. When I was working as a technical consultant, I was what I call productively lazy. I would spend a week working to ensure I’d never have to spend another hour fixing an ongoing problem. Get productively lazy!
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