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Time Management for Mortals – Book Recommendation

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Stress Management
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman (2023).

Four thousand weeks – Burkeman reminds us – is about all we get in life, if we live to be eighty. In the big picture of the universe, this is an “absurdly, insultingly brief” span. Clearly, it is not enough to do everything we want, even if we maximized our productivity with every trick ever invented.

That is the backdrop of this book, which offers guidance on constructing a meaningful life by acknowledging our limits.

I’ve enjoyed reading it, but am having difficulties passing on its advice. I feel a similar ambivalence toward its wisdom as towards the wisdom we sometimes hear from survivors of near-death experiences. Seemingly only having acquired this insight after almost dying, the survivors tell us that life is short and can end even sooner than we think, and therefore we should appreciate it even more. For example, why not marvel at the wonders of a sweet-smelling rose, instead of picking a petty fight with your spouse? It’s not that I disagree. On the contrary. It’s that those insights seem – well – not new, exactly.

That said, probably no great wisdom is truly new. (This itself would not be a new insight by any stretch.) Passing on old words of advice, even just as reminders, might be a good idea anyway. Most likely, people have been doing just that with memento mori art and related concepts, which seem to appear throughout human history and throughout different cultures.

Memento Mori, obraz

So here are some of Oliver Burke’s points I found worth reflecting on.

My top three selection of time management tips for mortals
  1. Neglect the right things. Sadly, some of the things you’ll need to neglect will be important things. Make peace with those losses. It’s not your fault that you can’t do everything that would be important. Two particular lines of thought might help you decide what to let go of:
    • Limit your works in progress.
    • Resist the allure of middling priorities.
  2. Get real not only about how little time you have, but also about the fact that most things take longer than you expect – even when you take into account that most things take longer than you expect. Plan for enough buffers and breaks, slack and transition time. Since you can’t do everything anyway, you might as well cut out one more thing and instead show up early enough and be present for what you do choose to do.
  3. And my favorite – cosmic insignificance therapy: Remember how little you matter, on a cosmic timescale. Even the most impactful people in human history don’t make a dent in the universe. Truly recognizing this fact may feel like setting down a burden we didn’t realize we were carrying in the first place. Seen with this perspective, appreciating how little time we have in this life doesn’t mean resolving to “do something remarkable” with it. On the contrary, letting go of an over-demanding standard of remarkableness may help us appreciate the impact we do have on the people close to us, and to not discount the significance of this.

Lastly, this song goes out to (only, I’m afraid) my loyal Swiss-German readers, who might enjoy it as a collectively treasured memento mori:

Picture Credit:

[1] Jendex, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Skills coaching group for executive functioning

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, ADHD, Coaching Practice, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Stress Management

Executive functioning skills group offered through ADHD-NW Treatment Center

Would you like to improve your abilities to plan ahead and meet goals, manage your time, stay focused despite distractions, or display self-control more generally? Or do you know someone else who could use help with any of these so-called “executive functioning” skills?

I’m offering a new weekly skills and support group in collaboration with the ADHD-NW Treatment Center. This course is open to all (with or without ADHD)! The group is ideal for adults who struggle with procrastination, time management, and developing and maintaining healthy routines of life organization.

Topics covered in this group include: scheduling strategies, learning how to reward yourself for working toward difficult tasks, techniques towards better focusing abilities, establishing a productive work environment, among others.

Groups will begin with a check in, mutual accountability on progress toward goals from the previous session, and discussion of weekly topics. We’ll discuss relevant findings from neuroscience, psychology, behavioral economics, and choice architecture in relation to the topic of the week, and how you might apply those concepts to make your own life easier. We’ll end each group end with sharing a personal plan and commitment to action for the coming week.

Coaching Group: Developing Healthy Work Habits and Skills
Start Date: Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Tuesdays 8:00 to 9:00 AM
Minimum Commitment: 6 Weeks
Open Enrollment – You can join this group at any time
Format: Virtual
Cost per Group Session: $29.99 – $39.95

You can find more info and enroll here:
https://nw-adhd.com/community-groups/

If you have questions, feel free to text or give me a call at (858) 200-6887.

Thanks so much for sharing!

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Effects of sleep deprivation on decision making

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Health Decisions, Neuroscience, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Risk and Uncertainty, Stress Management
How does a lack of sleep affect our judgment? Does it really lead to poorer choices?

"Drowsy drivers use next exit": warning sign on Interstate 15 in Utah Unfortunately, the answer is many times yes. In my research into the topic, I’ve found at least eight ways how a lack of sleep affects different aspects of our judgment and decision making.

Sleep deprivation affects us both physically and mentally, and decision-making is a complex process that requires the orchestration of multiple neural systems, such as emotion, memory, and logical reasoning. It is therefore not too surprising that sleep deprivation would take a toll on many fronts.

Here are eight effects of sleep deprivation on decision making:

1) What’s perhaps best known is that it impairs attention and working memory, leading to slower reaction times, reduced vigilance, and more mistakes. This is why the risks of driving while sleepy are considered at least as dangerous as the risks of driving under the influence of alcohol [1]. For example, being awake for 17 hours leads to impairments equivalent to having a BAC of 0.05%, and being awake for 24 hours to having a BAC of 0.10%.

For people with ADHD, sleep deprivation leads to even more focus-related problems, such as disproportionately more errors and slower reaction times. In addition, lack of sleep decreases the effectiveness of some ADHD medications [2]. (Unfortunately, ADHD also makes it harder stick to a good sleep routine. Here are some tips on how to deal with this problem.)

2) But it also affects long-term memory. Sleep deprivation affects the brain’s ability to learn and recall information [3]. In fact, lack of sleep seems to be a risk factor for (not only correlated with) dementia, probably for a number of reasons [4; 5; 6]. For one, during REM sleep the brain processes information and consolidates memories from the previous day. Sleep also plays a large part in regulating the availability of neurotransmitters. Lastly, sleep deprivation leads to an increase in beta-amyloid. This is the protein that occurs in abnormally high levels in brains with Alzheimer’s disease, where it clumps together to form plaques that collect between neurons and disrupt cell function.

3) Logical reasoning ability also suffers. Namely, sleep deprivation increases rigid thinking, perseveration errors, and difficulties in processing and using new information [7]. In other words, complex tasks and innovative decision-making do suffer from a lack of sleep.

4) Self-awareness is another aspect of our judgment that’s essential for making smart choices. Unfortunately, self-evaluation of cognitive performance is also impaired by sleep deprivation. In one study [8], during 36 h of sleep deprivation, research participants became more confident that their answers were correct as the wakefulness continued. Confidence was even stronger when the answer was actually wrong.

5) Lack of sleep makes us more risk prone. For example, in gambling tasks, sleep deprivation led to both higher expectations of rewards for risky choices, as well as diminished responses to their losses [9].

6) In addition, many studies show that sleep deprivation leads to more impulsive behavior and a lack of inhibition [e.g., 10; 11]. Note that impulsivity is not the same issue as the risk attitude from the previous point. These two aspects of decision making are independent – you can be deliberate about taking high risks (e.g., choosing an aggressive investment portfolio), and you can be impulsive about avoiding risks (e.g., giving into irrational fears or shying away from discomfort). But of course the combination of impulsivity and risk-proneness is a particularly dangerous cocktail that can lead to reckless behavior.

7) Sleep deprivation has negative effects on many aspects of mood, such as depression, anger, and anxiety [e.g., 12 – 15]. While some studies only show correlations over time [12]., others do show a causal effect [13; 14]. One study examined the effects of sleep deprivation in healthy adolescents, comparing depression, anger, confusion, anxiety, vigor, and fatigue across days. They found that all mood states significantly worsened following one night without sleep. Female participants showed a greater vulnerability to mood deficits following sleep loss, with greater depressed mood, anxiety, and confusion [14]. Another study examined a cohort of medical residents over their first postgraduate year and found that mood disturbances, lowered empathic capacity, and burnout increased over the year, and were associated with decreases in sleep amounts and increases in sleepiness [12].

Here, too, if we keep in mind that increased impulsivity will be added to this mix of bad mood, it won’t be surprising to learn that bad behavior follows. For example, one study looked at abusive supervisory behavior in managers across a variety of industries. They showed that daily sleep quality was negatively related to leaders’ self-control, and that those who were more sleep deprived were rated as significantly more abusive and toxic in interpersonal interactions [16].

8) Finally, sleep deprivation affects our hormones and metabolism. It leads to decreased glucose tolerance, decreased insulin sensitivity, increased evening concentrations of cortisol, increased levels of ghrelin, and decreased levels of leptin [17]. While cortisol is a biomarker of stress, ghrelin and leptin regulate our appetite. Ghrelin increases our appetive, while leptin decreases it. In other words, sleep deprivation leads to increased hunger and appetite on both the ghrelin and leptin fronts. Add to that again a lack of inhibition, and it becomes clear that our eating choices will be affected by a lack of sleep. Indeed, there is growing evidence both from epidemiological and laboratory studies showing an association between sleep loss and increased risk of obesity [18].

How can you get enough sleep in your busy life?

Most of all, make sleep a priority. This will most likely require some sacrifices, because it means giving up some of your waking hours. But if you’re taking into account how much better those waking hours will be if you’re fully rested, the trade-off will be well worth it.

For practical tips as to how to get into a better sleep routine, google “sleep hygiene” and follow all the advice you’ll find. As an example of that, a recent study at a boarding school found that a regular routine and no mobile devices at night helped teenagers get more sleep [19].

If your have troubles falling asleep despite good sleep hygiene, here are some interesting tips. Or, google “visualization falling sleep” and you’ll find cornucopias of techniques. I’d encourage you to try one after the other, until you find one that works for you.

All this is easier said than done of course! If you’d like to get some help along the way–from deciding how to shift and re-balance your priorities, to developing strategies, and getting support as you’re putting your priorities into practice–I’d be excited to talk to you.

"Get in Touch" Button to Schedule a phone call or coaching session with Ursina Teuscher

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

 

Picture Credit:
Phil Konstantin. Photo released into the public domain via hhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UtahSignByPhilKonstantin.jpg

References:

[1] Powell, N. B., Schechtman, K. B., Riley, R. W., Li, K., Troell, R., & Guilleminault, C. (2001). The Road to Danger: The Comparative Risks of Driving While Sleepy. The Laryngoscope, 111(5), 887–893. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005537-200105000-00024
[2] Waldon, J., Vriend, J., Davidson, F., & Corkum, P. (2018). Sleep and Attention in Children With ADHD and Typically Developing Peers. Journal of Attention Disorders, 22(10), 933–941. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054715575064
[3] Alhola, P., & Polo-Kantola, P. (2007). Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 3(5), 553–567. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19300585/
[4] Berglund, J. (2019). The Danger of Sleep Deprivation. IEEE Pulse, 10(4), 21–24. https://doi.org/10.1109/MPULS.2019.2922564
[5] Lack of sleep may be linked to risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. (2018, April 13). National Institutes of Health (NIH). https://www.nih.gov/news-events/lack-sleep-may-be-linked-risk-factor-alzheimers-disease.
[6] Lack of sleep in middle age may increase dementia risk. (2021, April 27). National Institutes of Health (NIH). https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lack-sleep-middle-age-may-increase-dementia-risk.
[7] Harrison, Y., & Horne, J. A. (1999). One night of sleep loss impairs innovative thinking and flexible decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 78(2), 128–145. https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1999.2827
[8] Harrison, Y., & Horne, J. A. (2000). Sleep loss and temporal memory. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. A, Human Experimental Psychology, 53(1), 271–279. https://doi.org/10.1080/713755870
[9] Venkatraman, V., Chuah, Y. L., Huettel, S. A., & Chee, M. W. (2007). Sleep Deprivation Elevates Expectation of Gains and Attenuates Response to Losses Following Risky Decisions. Sleep, 30(5), 603–609. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/30.5.603
[10] Anderson, C., & Platten, C. R. (2011). Sleep deprivation lowers inhibition and enhances impulsivity to negative stimuli. Behavioural Brain Research, 217(2), 463–466. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2010.09.020
[11] Demos, K. E., Hart, C. N., Sweet, L. H., Mailloux, K. A., Trautvetter, J., Williams, S. E., Wing, R. R., & McCaffery, J. M. (2016). Partial sleep deprivation impacts impulsive action but not impulsive decision-making. Physiology & Behavior, 164, 214–219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2016.06.003
[12] Rosen, I. M., Gimotty, P. A., Shea, J. A., & Bellini, L. M. (2006). Evolution of Sleep Quantity, Sleep Deprivation, Mood Disturbances, Empathy, and Burnout among Interns. Academic Medicine, 81(1), 82–85. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001888-200601000-00020
[13] Scott, J. P. R., McNaughton, L. R., & Polman, R. C. J. (2006). Effects of sleep deprivation and exercise on cognitive, motor performance and mood. Physiology & Behavior, 87(2), 396–408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2005.11.009
[14] Short, M. A., & Louca, M. (2015). Sleep deprivation leads to mood deficits in healthy adolescents. Sleep Medicine, 16(8), 987–993. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2015.03.007
[15] Pires, G. N., Bezerra, A. G., Tufik, S., & Andersen, M. L. (2016). Effects of acute sleep deprivation on state anxiety levels: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep Medicine, 24, 109–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2016.07.019
[16] Barnes, C. M., Lucianetti, L., Bhave, D. P., & Christian, M. S. (2015). “You wouldn’t like me when I’m sleepy”: Leader sleep, daily abusive supervision, and work unit engagement. Academy of Management Journal, 58(5), 1419–1437. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2013.1063
[17] Leproult, R., & Van Cauter, E. (2010). Role of Sleep and Sleep Loss in Hormonal Release and Metabolism. Endocrine Development, 17, 11–21. https://doi.org/10.1159/000262524
[18] Beccuti, G., & Pannain, S. (2011). Sleep and obesity. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, 14(4), 402–412. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCO.0b013e3283479109
[19] Lushington, K., Reardon, A., & Agostini, A. (2022). O025 Boarding school students sleep better than day-student peers. The positive effects of bedtime routine and restricting technology use at night. Sleep Advances: A Journal of the Sleep Research Society, 3, A9–A11. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleepadvances/zpac029.024. 


Performing under Pressure

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Career Development, Coaching Practice, Neuroscience, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Stress Management
Have you ever choked when you needed to perform under pressure?

We all know what it feels like: you’ve been building your skill – whether it’s in academics, in your career, in sports, in performing arts – but when the big moment arrives, nothing seems to work. You hit the wrong note, drop the ball, get stumped by a simple question. In other words, you choke under the pressure.

Here, I will review a book by Sian Beilock about this topic, along with additional research, and I’ll highlight some findings that can help you perform at your own very best, even under pressure.

A book review and practical applications

Dr. Sian Beilock, an expert on performance and brain science, examines in her book “Choke” why we sometimes blunder and perform at our worst precisely when the stakes are highest. What happens in our brain and body when we experience the dreaded performance anxiety? And what are we doing differently when everything magically clicks into place?

[👆TED Talk by Sian Beilock, author of “Choke: The Secret to Performing Under Pressure.”]

Beilock reveals surprising similarities among the ways students, athletes, performance artists, and business people choke. She examines how attention and working memory guide human performance, how experience and brain development interact to create our abilities, and how stress affects all these factors. The findings she present give us helpful pointers to how we can overcome debilitating performance anxiety, and how to succeed despite the pressure.

What does it mean to “choke” under pressure?
Choking under pressure is poor performance that occurs in response to the perceived stress of a situation. In other words, choking is not simply poor performance. Choking is suboptimal performance. It means that that you perform worse than expected given what you are capable of doing, and worse than you have in the past. It also doesn’t merely reflect a random fluctuation – we all have performance ups and downs. Choking occurs specifically in response to a highly stressful situation.
What are the reasons we choke? Why do we sometimes perform worst in precisely the moment when we care most about a top performance? 
Beilock writes a lot about the effects of an overloaded working memory on performance. While she doesn’t make the following distinction in her book, the findings she presents make more sense to me if we acknowledge that there are two types of performances:
1) There are some skills we have practiced so well that we don’t have a conscious understanding anymore of what we are doing.

The skills of top athletes or musicians are obvious examples here, but we all experience this for skills that require no conscious attention from us, such as running down a flight of stairs. If you suddenly direct explicit attention to exactly what you’re doing with your feet while running, chances are it won’t go so well anymore. This sudden focus on your own movements can happen during a peak performance, and is a well-documented reason for choking. For example, athletes’ tendency to overthink their performance is one big predictor of whether they will choke in important games or matches. In those situations, it helps to add an unrelated thinking task (such as counting backwards) that will distract the performer just enough so that they can’t overthink their performance anymore.

2) On the other hand, there are skills that will always require our full attention, no matter how practiced we are: solving math problems is such an example.

For this type of skill, our performance suffers if we get distracted, because we do need our working memory at its full capacity in order to perform at our best. Worrying about your performance is precisely such a distraction: it takes up precious resources of your usual brain power. When math-anxious people do math, all their worries – about the math, about their performance, about looking stupid – capture a big part of their working-memory, and they are left with less brainpower to focus on the math itself.

When you worry while doing math, something gets sacrificed.
Unfortunately it’s not the worries, but the math.

This is also a well-documented phenomenon. An example of this is the performance hit that is often observed when people are aware of a “stereotype threat”. Namely, bringing up negative stereotypes about how your sex or racial group should perform can be enough to send people into a spiral of self-doubt that uses up valuable brain resources that could otherwise work on the task at hand – resources that are already scarce in high-stakes situations. The mere awareness of these stereotypes can lead to choking under pressure.

So how can you prevent choking, and instead perform at your best when you’re under pressure?

Here are my top five practical tips, based on the science I’ve seen so far (the research findings are taken mostly from Beilock’s book, but see a list of additional references below).

1. Know whether your task requires your full attention or not, and “load” or “unload” your working memory capacity accordingly:

If your task involves fully automated “muscle memory” skills, such as an athletic or musical performance, it may help you if you can distract yourself, in order to avoid focusing your attention on your own movements and getting – perhaps literally – tripped up by your unhelpful focus.

If, on the other hand, your task does require your full attention, such as an academic test, try to “unload” your worries in order to free up working memory. For example, writing about the stressful events in your life on a regular basis can decrease the occurrence of intrusive thoughts and worries. This can bolster your cognitive horsepower. Think of a computer analogy: if a computer is running several programs at once, each one of these programs will run that much slower and be more prone to crash. Getting your worries out on paper eliminates the unnecessary programs from running and helps you focus on the task at hand.

2. Practice under the gun:

Of course, practice makes everything easier, but in particular, make your practice situation as similar as possible to the performance situation. For example, if you need to give a presentation, practice it in front of people, or in front of a camera. Different studies, one with golfers and one with with musicians, showed a very similar effect of this kind of practice: those who had practiced while being video-taped performed better in front of an audience than those who had practiced in isolation.

3. Prepare, don’t worry:

Preparing is not the same as worrying! People thinking about an upcoming presentation while lying in a brain scanner got more nervous, the longer they spent anticipating the stressful event. So, prepare well, but don’t keep thinking about the stressful event more than necessary. Once you are well-prepared, it may serve you better to focus your attention on something other than the upcoming performance.

4. Social support – a mixed bag:

Men who were able to spend time with their spouses before having to prepare their speech showed less of a stress response (cortisol increase) in anticipation of a stressful public speaking assessment than those who didn’t spend time with their spouse. However, the same was not the case (in a different study, but with the same stressful public speaking test) with women: women’s cortisol levels went up when their boyfriends were present beforehand. Before generalizing this finding too much, I would like to emphasize that these were different studies and may have included people in different stages of their relationships.

So then, what to conclude from these mixed findings? Of course, you know it: surround yourself with the kinds of people who make you feel calmer, rather than adding more pressure, when you’re stressed out.

5. Focus on values (not goals):

Interventions that asked students to write a paragraph about their values before a task performed better and were less affected by stereotype threats. This may sound like a weird intervention, but it does make sense. Focusing on values may re-affirm your self-worth and integrity, and direct your focus away from your own flaws and onto the bigger picture.

Note that values are not the same as goals: several studies showed that focusing on goals had no effect on performance, for example in soccer players and race car drivers. This is also not too surprising, since goal setting is a motivational technique, rather than one one that optimizes attention, and motivation is already high enough, if not too high, when we choke under pressure.

What next?

Do you need help with your own performance under pressure?

Are you, or is someone you love, struggling with performance anxiety? Would you like to try some of the here discussed or other evidence-based interventions? I would love to help you think about how to apply these and other ideas to your specific situation. Here you can schedule a coaching session or a phone call to discuss options.

Set up an appointment with Ursina Teuscher to discuss Performance Coaching
I look forward to talking to you!

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


References:

J. Aronson et al., “When white men can’t do math: Necessary and sufficient factors in stereotype threat,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35 (1999), 29–46.
M. H. Ashcraft and E. P. Kirk, “The relationships among working memory, math anxiety, and performance,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130 (2001), 224–37.
S. Beilock. Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To. Atria Books.
S. L. Beilock and T. H. Carr, “On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure?” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130 (2001), 701–25.
G. L. Cohen, J. Garcia, N. Apfel, and A. Master, “Reducing the racial achievement gap: A social-psychological intervention,” Science, 313 (2006), 1307–10.
B. Ditzen et al., “Adult attachment and social support interact to reduce psychological but not cortisol responses to stress,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 64:5 (2008), 479–86.
A. J. Fiocco, R. Joober, and S. J. Lupien, “Education modulates cortisol reactivity to the Trier Social Stress Test in middle-aged adults,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 32 (2007), 1158–63.
P. Gröpel & C. Mesagno (2019) Choking interventions in sports: A systematic review, International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 12:1, 176-201
C. Kirschbaum et al., “Sex-specific effects of social support on cortisol and subjective responses to acute psychological stress,” Psychosomatic Medicine, 57 (1995), 23–31.
K. Klein and A. Boals, “Expressive writing can increase working memory capacity,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130 (2001), 520–33.
E. H. McKinney and K. J. Davis, “Effects of deliberate practice on crisis decision performance,” Human Factors, 45 (2003), 436–44.
C. M. Steele and J. Aronson, “Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African-Americans,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69 (1995), 797–811.
T. D. Wager et al., “Brain mediators of cardiovascular responses to social threat: Part II: Prefrontal-subcortical pathways and relationship with anxiety,” Neuroimage, 47 (2009), 836–51.
C. Y. Wan and G. F. Huon, “Performance degradation under pressure in music: An examination of attentional processes,” Psychology of Music, 33 (2005), 155–72.


Workshop: Job Stress Management

Posted on by by Posted in Career Development, Coaching Practice, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Stress Management

Wednesday August 16, 11am-1pm (Portland, OR).

Is your job causing you a lot of unhealthy stress? In my last post, I wrote about the “Sort and Tackle” Technique, and how and why it can improve your stress levels at work. You can now give this technique a try in a guided setting and start sorting out and tackling some of your own biggest challenges at work. In this interactive workshop, I’ll help you prioritize which stressors to tackle first, and design a plan with specific next steps. Find more information and register here.

Workshop on Job Stress Management

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


How to Manage Stress at Work

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Career Development, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Resources, tools, Self-Assessments, Stress Management

If your job is causing you a lot of stress, you’re not alone. In a 2014 survey in the US, almost a third (31%) of the workers reported that they typically feel tense or stressed out during the work day. This number is even higher among millenials (18-34 year old workers) than among any of the older generations.

What are the most common causes for stress at work?

So many issues can cause stress at work. The survey lists the following, with the most commonly experienced stressors on top:

  1. Low salariesHow to Manage Stress at Work: Learn a technique that helps you take control and start tackling your top stressors.
  2. Lack of opportunity for growth and development
  3. Uncertain or undefined job expectations
  4. Job insecurity
  5. Long hours
  6. Too heavy of a workload
  7. Unrealistic job expectations
  8. Work interfering during personal or family time
  9. Lack of participation in decision making
  10. Inflexible hours
  11. Problems with my supervisor
  12. Commuting
  13. Physical illnesses and ailments
  14. Problems with my co-workers
  15. Unpleasant or dangerous physical conditions
  16. Personal life interfering during work hours

Does any of this sound familiar when you think or your own job?

What can you do to manage stress at work?

When you search for “stress management techniques”, you’ll mainly find different versions of relaxation techniques. While being able to relax is a good skill to develop and practice, it only gets you so far. It doesn’t really help with most of the work stressors we’ve found here. Also, since there are so many different causes of stress, there is no one remedy that will help them all. Nonetheless, here is my suggestions for a specific technique that can get you started. I call it the “Sort and Tackle” Technique. All you need to begin with is a stack of index cards.

The “Sort and Tackle” Technique

Keep a stack of index cards nearby at work. Whenever you notice that you’re stressed out or frustrated about something, write it down on one card. Once in a while (you can do this as often as you want), do a “sort and tackle”:

1. Sort the cards. There will be some cards that describe stressors you have no control over whatsoever. For example, you may not be able to negotiate your salary. However other cards will describe issues that you may be able to improve in some way, if you are willing to invest some effort, take some risks, or just try something new. For example, you may be able to resolve a conflict with your co-worker, or change some habits to improve your own time management. Move the cards to the top of the pile that describe something you may be able to change. Move the other cards to the bottom that describe issues out of your control. If there are cards about which you are not sure, leave them in the middle for now. You can revisit them later and give them some more thought.

Extra credit: Use the back of each index card to list all kinds of ideas (even bad ones) of how you could improve each stressor. There’s no need to tackle all your problems at once, but collecting your ideas whenever they occur to you will give you something to choose from, once you’re ready to take specific steps.

2. Tackle one. Once you’ve sorted your cards – with the most hopeful, potentially improvable issues on top – pick just one among your top five cards that you want to tackle next. Make a specific plan about how to deal with this issue. For example, if you want to discuss your workload with your boss, you might start by scheduling a meeting with her, or you might start by asking a friend for advice on how you might approach the issue with your boss. Whatever your next step is, define it specifically as to what you are going to do when. It’s better to have a small next step in your calendar than a big but vague “to do” in your head.

And what do you do with the rest of the cards? For now: nothing at all. Until you can come up with reasons to move them to the top of the pile, that is. As long as you have no idea how you could improve the situation from your end, there is also nothing you need to do about it.

Here’s the beauty of this technique: even though you’re only tackling a small part of your problems at any time, this often has positive side effects on all of your stressors. Namely, knowing that you are taking active steps to improve your situation where you can, will give you more peace of mind about the issues that remain out of your control. It truly helps to acknowledge that there are parts of your work that simply suck. Since you can’t do anything about them, there is no point in worrying about them. So don’t throw any of the cards away – keep the whole pile and add to it whenever something new (or old) comes up that stresses you out. However, focus your active efforts and interventions on the top of your pile: on the issues you might be able to improve and are ready to tackle next.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Are You Scared of Your Next Decision?

Posted on by by Posted in Creative Thinking, Risk and Uncertainty, Stress Management

Scared of Your Next Decision?

Edvard Munch (1893): The Scream. Oil, tempera & pastel on cardboard. [Image rights in the public domain.]

Tonight will be a scary night for the bravest of us, with countless children roaming the streets, high on sugar, threatening to knock on our very doors.

However, even today, our most crippling fears probably come from within. Are you scared of your next decision? Afraid of making the wrong choice? Funnily enough, while dogs and – some say – children can smell our fear; on our own we’re not always very good at recognizing when and why we’re scared.

Here’s how you can recognize whether your decision scares you:

  • You avoid making the decision altogether, for example by procrastinating or by shifting the responsibility to others.
  • You get overly emotional about your decision. Maybe you get angry or burst into tears when others are bringing up uncomfortable truths about your situation? Such emotional outbursts are effective ways of shutting down a conversation, and they can be warning signs that your fears are holding you back from thinking and acting in the best way.
  • You keep investing into previous mistakes. This is also known as “escalating commitment”. When coping with poor outcomes of our previous choices, it is tempting to dig in our heels and devote even more resources to our current path, in the hope of somehow making it work. But sometimes, making the best decision for the future requires that we admit having made a mistake in the past. This is not easy: even admitting mistakes just to ourselves takes a lot of courage, but it can open the door to a new and better direction.

If any of these points ring true, take it as a warning sign that you might need more courage to approach your decision.

How to become a braver decision maker

The simplest way to get more courage is to take responsibility for your decision process, even if the outcomes are not all in your control. Follow a decision process that is in line with your values. Without being able to predict the future, we will never have a guarantee that good decisions will lead to good consequences, but there is plenty of evidence showing that a good decision process is indeed more likely to result in better outcomes. Since you will make many decisions over your lifetime, you can therefore be assured that if you follow a good decision process throughout your life, your decision outcomes will be better overall.

Four steps to tackle your decisions fearlessly:

1) Commit to a value-driven rational decision process. This does not guarantee good outcomes, but it does make them more likely.

2) Ask yourself: Which of my values matter for this decision? In other words, what are my personal criteria as to whether the outcome will be “good” or “bad”?

3) Think: What can I do that best fulfills all those values? (Think beyond your initial ideas. If necessary, use tools/visuals/charts etc to evaluate your options – I’m not getting started on all this here, but you know who to ask if you want to know more about creative thinking and evaluating options.)

4) Act. Knowing that you’ve made the best decision you possibly could have with your current knowledge – a decision that is based on your values, rather than on fear – will empower you to act with confidence.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Selected References:
Anderson, B., Hahn, D., & Teuscher, U. (2013). Heart and Mind: Mastering the Art of Decision Making. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Aschenbrenner, K. M., Jaus, D., & Villani, C. (1980). Hierarchical goal structuring and pupils’ job choices: testing a decision aid in the field. Acta Psychologica, 45, 35–49.
Bruine de Bruin, W., Parker, A. M., & Fischhoff, B. (2007). Individual differences in adult decision-making competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 938–956.
Dean, J. W., & Sharfman, M. P. (1996). Does Decision Process Matter? A Study of Strategic Decision-Making Effectiveness. The Academy of Management Journal, 39(2), 368–396.
Herek, G. M., Janis, I. L., & Huth, P. (1989). Quality of U.S. Decision Making during the Cuban Missile Crisis: Major Errors in Welch’s Reassessment. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 33(3), 446–459.
Keeney, R. L. (1996). Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decision Making. Harvard University Press.

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Binge Working and Procrastination: Your Experience

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Health Decisions, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Stress Management

Last-minute stress and binge working will improve your future procrastination as much as a hangover will improve your drinking habits.

At least that’s my hypotheses.

Guilt, Binge Working and Procrastination

Or what do you think? I’d love to hear about your experience. Do you sometimes work in somewhat excessive “binges”, for example through the night or throughout a weekend? If so, is this productive for you in the long run, or does it lead to the vicious circle in the image?

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


“You Are on the Fastest Route”

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Leadership, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development, Stress Management

Did you notice? According to the encouraging GPS voice, you are always “on the fastest route”.

It’s true though: as long as you know where to go next, none of the past detours, U-turns, or missed exits, change the fact that you are, NOW, on the fastest route.

FastestRoute

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


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