3 Cool Steps to Conquer Stress and Release Your Creative Juices

For an entrepreneur there are simply not enough hours in a day. Despite starting early and working till late there is always more to get done.

It’s easy to get stressed and overwhelmed when there is more on your plate than you can handle.

When you’re almost drowning, all you can think of is staying alive and keeping your head above the water. You don’t have space in your mind for creative ideas. In order to be successful, you must come up with new bright ideas and find new opportunities to grow your business.

Here are 3 great steps that can shift you from “drowning” to winning by freeing up your creative juices:

1. Your “Back to the Future” List

You got to go back in time, to change your problems of today – and create your future. Let’s face it. You know there are things you should have done a long time ago and for some reason never got to it. Those are the exact things that are holding you back today.

Have you ever noticed how your computer gets slower when you have a lot of applications open? And every little action takes forever? If you have too many programs open, there is not enough computing power left for new actions. The RAM (random access memory) is the “working” memory of your computer and it can handle only so much at the same time.

Of course, your mind is way beyond the capacity of any computer, yet the concept is similar. All the uncompleted tasks “running” in the back of your mind, are reducing your computing power and creativity, and are causing you a lot of stress.

Let’s get you back to the future, so you can get the attention units back that are stuck in the past. Begin reducing your stress by writing down anything and everything that is overdue and already should have been done, include promises you made, paperwork to take care of, old payments that should have been made, anything you can think of. Maybe you promised your son to take him to the waterpark which you never did. No matter if it’s small or big, write it down.

Making your “back to the future” list will be like taking a breath of fresh air after being under water for a while. Keep adding to your list when more things come to mind. To more thoughts you’ve captured on paper, the less thoughts you have floating around in your mind. You’ll notice that just writing everything down will make a big difference.

2. Reboot Your Productivity

Your productivity suffers when you’re struggling with a backlog and are feeling stressed. As you have less attention units available projects tend to take longer to complete and you’re likely less focused. Simply writing the “back to future” list will already improve your creativity and productivity.

Plus, you feel better about yourself, because you’re actually doing something about the situation. You’re no longer the victim or effect of the circumstances, you’re taking responsibility and shifting to being cause in your life.

Now it’s time to tackle the list and reboot your productivity. The first step is to review your list and decide what is still relevant. There are things you can cross of your list simply by deciding to close the chapter. Next, block time on your calendar to complete tasks. You may want to take a full Saturday and start working on your list.

The number of tasks completed is more important than the size or importance of the task. So start with the easier tasks that are quick to complete. There may be tasks that can’t be completed in a few hours and are more a project than a task. Break down the project in bite-size chunks and schedule them on your calendar. Make a mini-plan where by each step is booked for completion at a certain time.

Get it done. You’ll be amazed how powerful this is when you actually DO IT! Don’t read it and simply think, “That’s a good idea.” Execute! Get it done!

The stress will dissipate, you’ll boost your productivity and your creative juices will begin to flow.

3. Super Charge Your Life

Depending on the number of tasks on your list, it may take you several weeks or several months to get it all done. Stay focused and don’t procrastinate. If a task seems too overwhelming or you don’t know what to, break it down in smaller bite-size chunks that you can do something with. If needed, ask for help.

Regardless what it is when you start something finish it immediately. It’s much more productive to start one task and continue working on it until it’s finished, then to start, put it away, do something else and then come back to it later. When you come back to it later, you don’t have in fresh on the top of your mind. You waste precious time figuring out where you left of.

As you catch up on your old tasks, you’ll notice that you’re getting more focused and more alert in present time. You’ll have more attention units to compute with. While you’re catching up on your backlog, complete new tasks fast and you will super charge your life.