Many will tell you that stress is internally created, yet external factors can aggravate it. Having an AK47 pointed at you may cause you to sweat, for instance.
Another accelerator for stress is clutter. Bloghers are inundated with opinions, news, technology—and many (especially in this current economical climes) hold onto two or three jobs. (Remember that story back in January 2008, when Mr. Malik, the blogger, suffered a heart attack while struggling to maintain his many blogs?)
With the credit crunch squeezing our non-existent balls, bloggers more than ever are breaking into a sweat. Some stress indicators?
- Sleeping noticeably more or less
- Procrastination, with a sense of not knowing where to start
- Nervous habits (nail biting, jaw clenching, hand shaking … the list goes on)
- Excessive sweating
- Shortness of breath
- Headaches and backaches
- Tight chest and dizziness
- Inability to focus and concentrate
Physical clutter can contribute to the mental clutter, and so it can add to your stress. Solutions that you probably haven’t heard of yet:
Chuck it in a box—neat, color-coded military ranked filing systems are a great ideal. In reality, most of us can only aspire to this. In the mean time, we deal with the guilt over our chaotic filing system by ignoring the problem.
A quick and effective solution is to pick up two boxes from your local supermarket. Color-code them (using colored paper, paint, whatever you have on hand). One color represents “Action,” and the other “Archive.”
In your Action box: throw any receipts that you need to act on, like for accounting uses. If you can, write a quick note on the back about the action needed.
In your Archive box: keep any receipts you need for taxation purposes.
When it comes time for that auditing, the receipts will be in a rough chronological order from top to bottom. And you will have saved yourself hours of worry and stress! (I imagine I’ll get many rude comments for this suggestion, but it really does work.)
