How to Stay Productive During Times of Stress
*Times are tough right now as we all adjust to the Pandemic. This episode was recorded back in 2018 but contains helpful information on how our stress response impacts our mental energy and ways to we can continue to move forward with the things that truly matter during hard times.
Stress happens. In this episode, I walk you through how stress affects your brain, ways to decrease and manage your stress response, and what you can do to set yourself up for productivity and self-care ahead of time.
How to Manage Stress for Greater Productivity: 7 Essential Tips
Stress is inevitable but understanding how it impacts our minds and bodies can empower us to manage it better and use it as a tool for growth rather than letting it derail us. Here are seven actionable ways to handle stress, maintain productivity, and find balance in your daily life.
1. Embrace Your Stress Without Judgment
We all experience stress differently, and it's crucial not to judge yourself for feeling it. Whether your stress stems from small daily frustrations or major life changes, it’s valid. Accepting that your stress is real can help you manage it more effectively rather than suppressing or ignoring it.
2. Understand the Science of Stress
When we’re stressed, our bodies react as if we’re facing a threat, even if it’s just a missed deadline rather than an actual life-or-death situation. The brain signals the adrenal glands to release adrenaline and cortisol, activating our “fight or flight” response. This can impact memory, decision-making, and emotional regulation, which can hinder productivity. Simply knowing this can help you approach stress with more empathy toward yourself and the people around you.
3. Calm the Nervous System with Breathing Exercises
Engaging in controlled breathing, like the 4-7-8 method, can help bring your nervous system back to a balanced state. Here’s how it works:
Breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds.
Hold your breath for 7 seconds.
Exhale through your mouth for 8 seconds. Repeat this three times to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps counteract the stress response, lowering cortisol and bringing calm back to the body.
4. Recognize and Redirect Emotional Triggers
When stressed, emotions can cloud judgment, making it challenging to think clearly. During high-stress times, be aware of what may emotionally trigger you. For example, if you’re stuck in a work limbo, waiting for updates, refocus on self-care activities, such as deep breathing, walking, or listening to music, rather than letting anticipation create more anxiety.
5. Reframe Stress as a Tool
While it’s often viewed as negative, stress can actually help us if we change our perception. Research shows that reframing stress as something manageable helps reduce its impact. Stress is just another part of the human experience, and rather than letting it control us, we can use it as a signal to check in with ourselves and our needs.
6. Allow Space for Rest
There’s a cultural pressure to be productive 24/7, but taking time to rest is essential. Rest isn’t just a break from productivity—it’s part of being productive. Slowing down periodically helps rejuvenate the mind, opens space for creative thought, and prevents burnout. Make rest a regular part of your routine and recognize it as a key element in sustaining your energy and mental clarity.
7. Develop Personal SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)
Consider creating personal routines or checklists for recurring tasks. This concept, often used in businesses, can simplify your life and reduce decision fatigue, especially when stress levels are high. Write out your morning or evening routines, meal planning steps, or even a “stress kit” checklist of comforting activities to help you during tough times. Having these standard operating procedures allows you to default to helpful habits without needing to make decisions in the heat of stress.
Final Thoughts
Stress is a normal part of life, but you can build a toolkit to manage it in a way that enhances your productivity rather than depleting it. Remember, it’s about understanding your reactions, being kind to yourself, and creating small, meaningful habits that bring calm and balance into your life.
Resources Mentioned
Kelly McGonigal's TED Talk: How to Make Stress Your Friend
-
Welcome to the Mindful Productivity Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler, and this is the place to be to live a more mindful and productive life. If you're ready to turn daily chaos into calm and start your days with intentions, then get ready to join. Join me as we dive deep into mindful living and personal productivity, it's time to connect with your true self so you can live the life you want to live.
And it all starts. Now. Today I want to talk about stress and what happens to our brains when we're under stress and how we can stay more productive when we are facing challenges in our lives. And one of the things I want to talk about, too, is it's really important to take away the judgment of why we are stressed. I think sometimes in our lives we are really stressed out about something. And maybe it doesn't seem like the biggest deal compared to people we know compared to other things that are going on in the world.
But the fact of the matter is that if you are feeling stressed, then that is a truth that you are facing, and it's so important to hold space for that instead of judging yourself for why you might be feeling stressed. There are times in our lives when little daily things can catch up with us in the chaos of minutiae. Daily life can make us really feel stressed, and that's okay. And then there are times when we may go through a trauma or something bigger or someone we know does, and that causes us stress.
The truth is that focusing on what we're actually feeling and not judging the why can really help us move forward in terms of managing it. So today I want to bust some of the myths about stress about productivity, about what that's supposed to mean, or do we have to be productive all the time and really talk about some of the science behind our brains and how our body releases stress and the stress response, and then also some things to consider and some ways to really move forward and help yourself feel more productive and feel like you're not just taking this giant break or that stresses controlling you and throwing you off kilter.
So let's go ahead and jump in. And the first thing I want to talk about is what happens to the brain and your body when you're stressed. So stress is triggered for a variety of reasons, and you've experienced stress before, and sometimes we don't know why, right? Sometimes we're like, oh my gosh, why am I anxious or why am I stressed? We can't pinpoint it. But there are some things just knowing how stress is triggered and activated within our body from a neurological and physiological standpoint that can help us better understand it.
And I don't know about you. But for me, kind of knowing the psychological and the physiological reasoning behind things in our body can make me feel, like, a little bit more empowered because it's like, oh, there's actually a reason, a physical reason why these emotions are coming up and showing up in my body and just kind of knowing that makes me feel more like a human, more like a normal person. So first of all, whenever we experience stress, our brain senses that stress, and it creates a threat response.
And it actually sends a signal down our spine to our adrenal glands. And our adrenal glands are responsible for releasing adrenaline. And when you release that adrenaline, it's that fight or flight response. It's the activation of our sympathetic nervous system, which really helps us get up and go. And that's fantastic. Right? You've all heard the comparison of, like, if there's a bear in the Woods, then it's great when you have adrenaline. It's not so great when you're trying to enjoy your morning coffee at work, and all of a sudden, you find out you missed a deadline and, oh, my gosh.
And you have that same stress response as if there's actually a life threat. But it's really not a life challenging issue. It's something a little bit more simple, but we can still experience that same response within our body. Something else that happens is that our hypothalamus within our brain begins to release a hormone called cortisol. And I'm sure you've heard of this. It's also something that when released in a high amount, can make us hungry. It can make us Moody. All these things happen. It's the stress response, right?
And one thing to take note of is that when we are stressed, it actually does impair some of our functionality. It's harder for us to. It affects our short term memory. So sometimes it can be really hard to recall something or be like, we forget things or simple things that we're supposed to do. We're supposed to go pick somebody up. We're supposed to get this in the mail today, and we can completely forget. And a lot of that can be due to stress. So it's important to give yourself a break, let yourself off the hook a little bit when you are stressed.
And if you do notice yourself getting stressed, to really make note, like, oh, hey, take a minute to be like, wait a minute. I'm stressed and call it out and be like, that's going to actually impact my memory. It also impacts our decision making ability. I can't tell you how many times I've been stressed out, and I've been, like, at Starbucks or something, and I can't make a decision. Do I want a Hazel or do I want a vanilla latte? I don't know. First world problems, right.
But it's amazing how much this can be impacted. So just being aware of that can really help as you kind of move through a stressful situation. So there's also the perception of threat. And sometimes we can actually reduce our stress. So I want to talk about that real quick, because sometimes there are moments that make us feel anxious or make us feel stressed, and we can just kind of take that as a fact. Right. But if we're able to step aside and observe kind of what's happening in our bodies or what we're experiencing, there are moments when we can really start reducing the cortisol, start reversing the stress response.
Right. Because our body ultimately in our brains, it's always looking for a balance, a state of homeostasis where we're in that zone of balance and your body is always looking for that. It's always looking for that. It's why it's trying to get you to go to sleep, and it's trying to get you to wake up and it's doing all these things. Our insulin is dipping and fluctuating. And depending on everything that we're doing to our body at any given time, it's always just trying to stay afloat.
It's trying to keep us alive. It's trying to keep us balanced in our optimum state. And if you realize that about your body, then you can make more decisions that help yourself get back to that state of balance. So if you're ever in a situation where you're experiencing a bout of stress or anxiety or adrenaline, one thing that you can do is focus on your breathing and use that amazing breathing exercise, the four, seven, eight breathing exercise. And it's super simple. And I'll probably mention this exercise so many times in so many different episodes in the podcast.
But that's because it seriously works. I use it all the time, and all you need to do for this is if you can sit up in your chair with a straight back, good posture, move your shoulders back, or if you're standing up great, even better. But you want to breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds, you're going to hold your breath for 7 seconds, and then you're going to breathe back out powerfully and consistently throughout your mouth for 8 seconds. You're going to want to do that three times.
And the reason why is because when you do this exercise and there's tons of other ways to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest and digest. And it helps activate our vagal tone, which is kind of this subconscious. We can't think about our vagal tone and affect it, but we can activate our parasympathetic nervous system and our response there. And when you do this, it helps reduce stress, and it helps your body calm down and come back to that state of balance. So really checking in as you're beginning to experience a stress response, just checking in and being like, Can I do something about this?
And sometimes, no, sometimes there's something really stressful going on in your life, and it's continual right there's. That like, one of the things I hate the most, but it's just part of life is when we're in States of limbo, when we are doing something difficult, and we've done everything we need to do. And then we are waiting on somebody else or we're waiting for something to happen or we can't get going until XYZ happens or until a certain time. And there's that state of limbo where it's like heightened anxiety.
Attention is high. We know that we can't do anything until we get to where we need to be to start. Right. And that's really stressful. So let's talk about when you are in situations where you can't change the situation that you're in, but you are experiencing stress. I want to talk about ways that you can stay calm and collected and more productive and really help yourself and use it as an opportunity for growth and inner awareness and all of that. So stress specifically is really amazing.
And it's amazing in, like, what it actually does within our brains and to our neurons. So stress specifically releases cortisol. Right. And what it actually does is it excites our brain cells. And it's actually if you think about a room full of, like, balloons, right. And think of, like an empty room, and then all of a sudden you get stressed and the room starts filling up with all these balloons, like taking over, there's no room to move. And then they just start popping one by one, super fast.
That's similar to what happens to our neurons in our brain. See, because our neurons within our cytoplasm within our brain, when they are infused, when Cortisol is going through our brain and going through all of that, they actually begin to emit higher levels of calcium. And when our neurons are filled with too much calcium, they actually start firing not only at higher rates, but inconsistently. And that is actually what makes them get excited to death. So they are literally being filled with too much calcium because of the cortisol.
And then they are firing and sometimes exploding to death. So think about it as like your brain being this room and the neurons being all these balloons, and they're just getting filled with too much air. Right. Like that's the calcium. And then they're just popping and think about that. And that's what's actually physically happening within your brain. It's amazing. Our bodies, our brains are amazing. But I kind of like that visual. I like being able to kind of tie that to. This is what stress actually looks like.
This is what's actually happening within our brains when we are stressed. So let's take a moment to I have a whole list here of some things I want to talk about in today's episode, but I want to touch on a couple of things. And that is when you are stressed. It's really easy for us to be really emotionally engaged and emotionally invested in what we're feeling. So let's talk about that for a second. Under moments of stress, we really are emotionally heightened. Our emotions are heightened.
We make a lot more. We tend to be more prone to make more emotionally based decisions, and I'm all for making decisions and with our emotions and all of that. But sometimes when we're stressed, it can be all the way emotion, and it can take away some of that left brain logic that we might need in a stressful situation. So we're emotionally charged. And when we are emotionally charged, I often feel this way. Maybe you can really. It's like, sometimes I feel blocked or mentally paralyzed or overwhelmed as to what I actually need to do next.
I'm like, I don't know, or we snap at people or we're like, Well, I don't know what to do next, or we just kind of stand there like a deer in the headlights. And it's important to realize that this is, in fact, part of the stress response. And I'll be talking about a way that something that you can do to help manage this and actually use this to your advantage as well. But one thing I want to touch on is that when we are stressed, what happens is if you think about yourself walking down through a tunnel, right?
And, like, at the end of the tunnel is your goal where you need to be the deadline for the project. You're working on something that is going on in your life. It's the next step. And when we're stressed, we notice all these little roadblocks in the way way more than we normally would. So we'll be walking down this tunnel and there'll be a puddle. And if we're in a good mood and we're focused and we're feeling good and our nutrition is on point and we've been taking care of ourselves and focusing on self care, then we can walk down these different tunnels throughout our day or throughout our week or whatever.
And we can be relatively unfazed by things. If there's a puddle or if we trip or we misstep, or if someone says, hey, I want you to go this direction. Instead, we can easily be like, oh, no, thanks. No big deal. My shoe got wet, whatever it is, but I am heading forward. I know where I'm going. I know that that's what I need to focus on. But when we're stressed, it can be really easy. All these little bumps in the road, if you will become these, like, stronger poles or invitations for us to focus on these negative things or these things that are annoying and that actually inhibits our productivity because we end up being like, oh, I just tripped on this rock.
I hate rocks. It's always in my way, oh, look, there's another one. Blah, blah, blah. And then what do we end up doing? We have stalled ourselves, and we're no longer moving forward. So being aware of that, that stress can do that can be a really great way to move forward. And when you are in those States of limbo, when you have to wait for something, just doing everything you can to focus on what the end goal is going to be, how you're going to feel.
And when you can't do anything else and you're still stressed, do things that make you feel good, take a break, make some time for self care. And that's the thing about stress is that even though it's not fun and it's going to be a part of our lives forever. Like, there's no cure for stress. It's a part of being human. It's a part of living in this world. But one thing about it is that it can be a great opportunity to check in with ourselves and go, what is going on?
Are their baseline needs that I'm not paying attention to is that only feeding or fuelling my stress? This sounds so simple, you guys, but sometimes it's as simple as being like, I'm not getting enough sleep. I'm not drinking enough water. I haven't eaten yet today. Or it's been a long time. Or I haven't had a really good conversation with someone I care about in a few days. Or when was the last time I laughed, like, full on Bella laugh like almost in tears. It feels so good sometimes checking in with ourselves and going back to like, this checklist, like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs kind of thing can really help us assess our stress levels.
And so one thing I want to say is if you are in that limbo phase and you're going, this is great, Sarah, but I just wish it was Tuesday or I just wish it was 03:00 because that's when everything is going to be better, then do something in the now. That's a healthy distraction that is good for you, good for your health. That makes you feel good. That helps calm you down. Go for a walk, go grab a cup of tea, have a conversation with someone, read a book, take five minutes to close your eyes and throw on an audio meditation.
Go sit in the bathroom by yourself for a second and just breathe. Whatever you need to do, focus on the now and focus on something that you can be grateful for in the moment that you're in. One thing that I do when I'm anxious or if I'm ever having a panic attack, which I get every now and then is to really go through my senses and be like, what do I see right now? What do I smell? What brings me joy? What went really right today that could have went wrong.
All of those things can really help you get through whatever you're going through so that you're not just constantly being like, Am I there yet? Am I there yet? Am I there yet? Right. So that's just a wonderful, wonderful reminder for you. There some other tips when you are stressed are to take stock in what you're connecting to in that moment or in this period. So what can you disconnect from the first thing that comes to mind is social media, right? Like, do you need to disconnect from social media?
Or is there a weekly event or something that you're going to? That's usually really fun. But this week it feels really high energy and you just don't have that disconnect. Can you take a break? Can you say no? What can you say no to? What can you delegate to other people? And we'll talk more in a second here about ways to help yourself delegate more. Right. So there's also a study in 2013 from the Journal of Medical Association of Thailand and researchers found and this is not the first time, but they found that mindfulness meditation can help decrease the release of cortisol and reduce the stress response.
And this was conducted with a group of medical students. But meditation and mindfulness meditation and the thing about it is a lot of people say, Well, I'm not into meditating. That's not something that I want to do. Mindfulness meditation can be very versatile, and it doesn't have to be closing your eyes, sitting in Lotus pose and breathing quietly with new thoughts for 20 minutes. It doesn't have to be that even just using an app like calm, I can't remember there's a couple of different ones as well, using something or just listening, looking up Zen or tranquility music on YouTube, throwing on some headphones and just closing your eyes even for a brief few minutes, can really help activate the parasympathetic nervous system that we all have, and it can help us relax.
Also, what's amazing about mindfulness in general is that you don't have to meditate and other things that you can do is just zero in and focus on the now. So the more that you can focus on the very moment you're in for me. This is something like if I'm cooking or if I'm chopping vegetables, really focusing on every single vegetable, every single cut that I make with the knife and what it sounds like on the cutting board, or if I'm folding laundry, just really being in the moment and taking my time and watching the fabric fold and feeling my body like feeling how I feel in my body, noticing my breathing, all of that.
Those are all forms of mindfulness meditation. You don't have to be closing your eyes. You can actually have this form of walking meditation. And these are things you can do when you're at work. These are things you can do on your commute. These are things you can do if you have kids, just noticing the details, the nuances of what's going on at the moment. And there have been so many times when I've been able to tap into this. And there's this abundance and expansion that happens when you focus on the present moment, right?
Because we're always trying to get to the next thing. We're always focusing on the next thing. But what's really amazing is when we focus on the present moment, we notice things we never would have noticed before. This is one of the reasons why I love going on walks with my Bulldog Bella because she helps me stay in the present moment, and I'll often go and I won't take my phone, and I'll let her kind of choose where we're going to go out in nature. And it's amazing because she'll just pick these spots to sit and stare off into the distance.
Sometimes I'm like, what in the world is she looking at? It's not always in front of some beautiful view or a beautiful tree. Sometimes it's in the most random of places, but it reminds me to stop wherever I am throughout the day and just notice, notice what I hear, notice what I see, notice what I feel. And sometimes when we take that moment to pause, it's like, oh, my gosh. I didn't realize that I was really holding on to something that happened last week with a certain person, and it's not even bothering me anymore.
But I was holding on to that and that it was taking up energy in my mind and in my body. And it was basically crowding out all these good feelings that I want to feel. I'm like, wow, now that I've released that I am making room for more positive feelings, good feelings, things I need to nourish me to come in, and that ultimately can help us balance and step away from those stressful feelings. I also do want to touch on the fact that we hear a lot of bad stuff about stress.
I just walked you through kind of the basic stuff that happens in our brain with stress and how it makes our neurons explode. But it's also how we view it, right? Kelly McGonagall has done amazing research, and she has an amazing Ted talk on stress, and she talks about how it's also how we view stress. So if every time you're stressed, you think, oh, no, this is really bad. I'm stressed, I'm going to die. This is going to cause heart problems. This is why I'm not happy.
Then it's only going to continue the stress. You're only going to feed and feel it more. But if you view stress is not a bad thing, not a negative thing, but just a part of the human experience and as a sign and a signal of maybe something that's going on for you, then it can really be a partner in your life. And I highly recommend that Ted talk. I'll link it in the show notes, but it's just really important to think about how you're viewing all of the things in your life, right?
It's similar to the podcast. I did a couple of back about how you don't have to be positive all the time. It's important to hold space for all of our emotions, for all of our stress, everything like that. And the moment that you do hold space for things. It's very ironic how easy it is to let them go and make room for the things that do bring us more joy. Another myth, I think that's really common is that when it comes to productivity and getting stuff done is that we always have to be going going, we have to be hustling all the time, and we get a lot of praise.
And we praise other people. When we see people being like, nonstop trailblazers like, oh, so and so is amazing.
She never stops.
She's always going, It's incredible. How does she do it? But the truth is that it's so important and a huge part of feeling productive and being productive is actually taking time to stop and slow down. And sometimes feeling stressed and overwhelmed is a perfect opportunity to do that. And I know it's tough to give yourself permission to stop and slow down, but I want to touch on the fact that when you actually are able to slow down and stop doing as much, you're actually able to sometimes be more productive.
So really being able to do less for a period of time gives you. I feel like for me, it really ignites the creative side of my mind and my brain when I am go, go working, working. And I mean, I've done that. You guys like, I've stayed up till 02:00 a.m. Multiple times within a week because I'm like, I just have to get more done. There's always going to be more work to do. But when I really give myself a break and I really unplug for a period of time, even a matter of hours or a day or a weekend or a week off, it is amazing how refreshed I am and how much more ideas and a sense of confidence and self efficacy.
And all of that actually just flows through me because I've given myself a break. So think about how you can do more when you do less, and that comes back to prioritizing. So when you are stressed, think about what are the things that have to actually happen, because I think when we're stressed, we kind of can throw more importance on more little things than they actually are worth. Right? We can be like, Well, I have 18 things to do. And if I don't do all those 18 things, then everything is going to get worse.
The emotional part of our stress response kicks in. And so it's really important to take time to be like, Well, I'm stressed, but what actually has to happen, what are the things that are so vital, they actually have to happen? And more often than not, it's like one or two things. It's really at the core. It's one or two things and other things can wait. Other things can shift or move and things can be delegated or you can touch base with people and be like, this is going on.
And so I might be late on this, or this might have to change, or our expectation about this may have to shift. And it's amazing how often we forget that. That's an option that we can communicate with other people and put our ego aside and be like, hey, this is what's going on. Can you work with me here? And more often than not, people will. I think we forget that often. One thing that can really help, ultimately with staying more productive during times of stress is to get clear on things that you already do automatically and to set yourself up.
So it's kind of like morning routines or evening routines. Right. We kind of just do them. It's why our parents teach us to brush our teeth and make us do it consistently, maybe at the same time every night. Right. Because then when we're adults, we just do it. It doesn't matter what happened or what's going on. We still do it. I remember after I lost my dad, I was amazed that there were things that I still would do. There are many areas of my life where I wasn't functioning for a while, but there were still things that I was doing, like I would still find myself getting in the shower or I would still find myself brushing my teeth sometimes not always right, depending on how I felt.
But there are things that are more automatic for us, and the more we can kind of create those routines in our lives, then the more likely we are to continue those habits and routines when we are stressed, and that can really, really help us out and make us feel more. Nourished. I love the idea of even putting together, like a stress kit for yourself or a self care kit or a list of things to do when you feel stressed. Things to do. I have a blog post of 25 things to do when you feel overwhelmed or when you don't know why you're having a bad day.
And I'll link it in the show notes. But even just having a list of things to do, to take care of yourself, or having a box with a candle and maybe a special snack or something like that. So along with creating those auto habits and those routines, it's also really helpful to create standard operating procedures for your personal life. And you may be thinking what we usually think of. Sops as business stuff, standard operating procedures are very complicated steps or just like the detailed steps or tasks that we need to complete in order for a bigger picture thing to happen within an organization or business.
Right. But we can also create these for ourselves, and they can be really powerful. And I want to share a little bit from this amazing book. It's called The Checklist Manifesto, how to Get Things Right. And I'm not going to pronounce this guy's name, right. But his name is Atul Atul. I believe Gwandi, and it's amazing. He is a medical practitioner and an amazing author, and he shared in the beginning of this book about this horrible situation that happened where this family was out. And I think the three or four year old daughter fell into the ice and was under the ice under the water for about 30 minutes.
In that amount of time, you're going okay. There's going to be severe brain injury or damage. There's so many risks for heart failure. All these things happen. And he talked about how she ended up being okay. She ended up actually recovering fully. I think there's a couple of issues, but the reason why she was able to recover fully. There were thousands, seriously, thousands of steps that needed to be carried out over the course of multiple days in order to resuscitate her in order to get her body back to the temperature it needed to be in order to revitalize her organs and get enough oxygen back into her bloodstream and into her brain.
And all these things that needed to happen to not only save her life, but to make sure that she could function and recover. And not only were there thousands of steps, but there were many, many people at a random hospital that she was transported to that had to do all these things. And there's people switching shifts. She's moving to different rooms in the ICU. All these things are happening, and somehow they all were able to cohesively manage the situation and save her life. And the reason why was because there were very detailed, standard operating procedures for things like this to happen, for all of the procedures she needed to have for the surgeries, for the oxygen, for checking her vitals, for communicating with other staff, doctors, nurses, all of those people to make sure everyone knew the exact details and the exact point on the timeframe of how her recovery was working forward.
And it's a really amazing, amazing story. I highly recommend this book. I'll put it in the show notes. It's how he writes it has you on your seat. It's incredible. I would never think that a book about checklist could be so fascinating. But the point is that when we are under a stress response, our emotions are triggered. And sometimes in our own personal lives, we don't think of things to do right? It's why people are always saying, have a plan of action for emergencies or for fires.
Make sure you have a first aid kit, make sure you know where to go and make sure you have a phone list or different companies have a pyramid of people to call and contact to make sure people are okay and located. And we know where everyone is. It's because in times of stress or trauma or tragedy or even just times of chaos, it's hard for us, right? Our memory can be impaired. Our decision making can be impaired. We can actually lose the ability to access certain parts of our brain as quickly as we normally do because of stress.
So having standard operating procedures for your life, and I'm not just talking about emergencies, but I'm also talking about whatever you do in your life and having these two not just for stressful times, but in general. One thing I have is a list that we keep at home, of things that we clean and how we clean them. Like, here's the bathroom. These are the steps we take to clean the bathroom and do all that. And it's actually helpful for me. And no, I don't need the checklist to clean the toilet and to clean the bathroom.
But every time that I have a checklist for that, and these are things that you can keep in project management systems like Trello or Asana for work related tasks. Or you can just print stuff off, make printables for things around the house or things in your life using software programs like that. What happens is we don't have to put in as much emotional energy into remembering all the steps that we need to take. And I think I'm a little bit nerdy and geeky, and the fact that creating all these standard operating procedures for different aspects of my personal life sounds really fun.
I feel like Monica and friends like, we've got to check off all these things. And I understand that probably most people aren't into that idea, but when it comes to things like things to do when you are stressed or things that need to be taken care of, if you have something that regularly needs to occur and you are the only one that does it. If you have a standard operating procedure for that, what it does for you is it gives you peace of mind that if something goes wrong, you can literally give someone access to that, tell someone about that resource that you've created and you can hand something in your life off to somebody else.
So if you get the flu, people can do some stuff for you, or if something happens and you're out of the country and whatever people have what they need to take care of, something for you. And that's the ultimate form of delegation and peace of mind, right? When we don't have to be like, oh, you need to do this. And, oh, crap, you need to also do this. And I forgot about this point. And you can actually just have one really linear form of communication with somebody and really just hand that off to them.
So when you're thinking about how to stay more productive when you're stressed, I really just want to hit home that it's important. First of all, just kind of recap everything. It's important to notice what kind of stress response you're having. Is it something that you can shift by activating your parasympathetic nervous system through breathing? Is it something that you can fuel or diminish depending on how you think about it. If it is something that's really stressful, think about the different ways that you can work through it.
Think about the ways that you can delegate things or the ways that you can take care of yourself to help yourself through the stress response and also to just giving yourself permission to realize that you don't have to be go go all the time. And that part of staying productive really means that deep and consistent self care. I'd love to hear what you found helpful for today's podcast, and as always, you can always find the show notes. Mindful Productivity Podcast thank you so much for listening, and if you've enjoyed this podcast, I highly encourage you to leave a review so that other people can find it as well.
I hope you have an amazing week and I hope that you give yourself full permission to Peel your stress so that you can manage it and you're able to let it go.
