Episode 993: Stress and Productivity

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 993 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Doug Nordman and Carol Pittner: I'm Doug Norgen I'm Carol Pitner and we're the authors of braising your money savvy family for next generation financial independence. And we challenge you to really focus on becoming money savvy. One way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:26] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true call in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself.

[00:00:46] Invest in. And develop your influence so that you can impact the world. So if you're undergoing stress right now, work on lowering the stress and you'll [00:01:00] discover that you can be more productive. The funny thing is if you spend some time and energy relieving stress and taking a break, you actually get more done than if you don't take care of the stress.

[00:01:14] in today's episode about impacting the world by stewarding your time. I talk with you about how stress affects your productivity. I share how stress can affect productivity of groups and of business. And I also share a few tips on what you can do about stress. As we talk about stewarding your time.

[00:01:33] Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show. Just that quick.

[00:01:51] If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/. [00:02:00] I'm finding more and more that I'm finding clients who are dealing with stress stress. The old joke is stress is when you pull back on that feeling of choking someone to death, that really deserves.

[00:02:15] But the truth is that stress is a true thing that we all feel from time to time. That something's missing that if you just drop one of these balls and you're trying to keep them all in the air, but if you just drop one. You're stuck between a rock and a hard place, and something's going to fall apart.

[00:02:37] And the truth is a lot of very high achieving people have a constant feeling of stress. And because of that, they have this constant feeling that they're going to miss something. And the irony is that stress actually affects us in that way. Stress backfires when it comes to [00:03:00] productivity. And yet many people think I work best when I'm under stress.

[00:03:04] I work best when I have tight deadlines, I work best when I'm constantly putting myself behind the eight ball and playing a game of catch-up. That's how I work. That's the best thing for me. And yet that feeling of overwhelm and being overburdened with everything that's going on actually has biological effects on our brain.

[00:03:27] It affects our personality. It affects the way the neuro-transmitters work and it affects the way we process and recognize and see the world. Over a long period of time. It can actually create insomnia, heart palpitations, nervousness, anxiety, obesity, thyroid problems, depression, and all of these things add up over time.

[00:03:58] And yet again, [00:04:00] a lot of times we think of stresses. This is the way it is. This makes me more productive, but it doesn't. Tons of workplace studies show that one of the most common threat to a successful workplace is the feeling of stress and anxiety. And most of us, or many people will feel like their job is one of the most big sources of stress in their lives.

[00:04:26] And so we actually have to look at ways to reduce stress in groups and in business to be able to get both individuals to be productive, as well as the business, as a whole, sometimes stress is brought on by external events, whether that's COVID, whether it's a job loss, whether that's a promotion, whether that's the death of a loved one, whether it's an illness, it can be a good thing or a bad thing.

[00:04:52] But that kind of stress usually create some recognizable effects. See if you have, or have [00:05:00] had any of these, a lack of energy. Yeah. You initial Lee get that burst of adrenaline and get some pump, but then you feel physically drained and you have a dip of both your physical and your mental energy. You have a lack of focus where constantly other thoughts are invading your mom.

[00:05:20] You have a state of constant worry and feeling like something's going to go wrong. You may not even really identify what is going to go wrong, but something's going to go wrong. You have reduced creative. You get less good ideas, less new ideas. You find yourself struggling to come up with new things, and then you also have the negative effects on your personality.

[00:05:45] You begin to snap at other people, especially the people that you work closely with, or who are your relationships, where you love and care for them. Because of that stress leads to turnover. It leads [00:06:00] to tardiness. It leads to strained relationships and lower quality of work, both for the business as a whole, as well as for the individuals.

[00:06:10] It doesn't matter whether you're self employed or whether you work for someone else. You'll see the effects of stress showing up. So what are some of the things you can do to reduce. Your stress in the world? One of them is simply exercise, getting out and taking a walk, getting out and doing some physical activity, being able to move around and get your body active, helps taking a break and spending some time concentrating on your breathing, whether that's through actual meditation or whether that's just taking a little breathing room.

[00:06:48] Finding something that isn't work-related that has a creative bent, whether that's painting or writing or reading or something else that gives you some sort of creative bit to [00:07:00] your brain, that isn't your normal day to day putting up and making your environment more orderly, more comfortable and more attractive.

[00:07:10] Can. And yes, orderly as part of that. If you have a messy environment around you that leads to stress and you could begin to train your brain to focus on the positive, do a gratitude journal, do an activity that causes you to say what is going well, as opposed to what is going badly. And then of course, sometimes you do actually need to seek some help from a professional, whether that's therapy or whether that's working with a coach.

[00:07:41] The truth is that stress affects each and every one of us. And it tends to lower our productivity. Even if you believe that's not true about you. So if you're undergoing stress right. Work on lowering the stress and you'll [00:08:00] discover that you can be more productive. The funny thing is if you spend some time and energy relieving stress and taking a break, you actually get more done than if you don't take care of the stress.

[00:08:13] That's the irony that so many people don't recognize and it causes them to constantly feel that stress and constantly be fighting that same battle against product. Thanks for listening.

[00:08:27] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting [00:09:00] 4 4, 2, 2, 2 time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time investor.

[00:09:13] Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.