Work stress is the phenomenon that’s launched a 1,000 articles (10,000? 20,000?) and spurred countless of tips, books, guides, and product recommendations. To ward it off, we’ve put ashwagandha powder in our lattes, we’ve listened to gurus who promised us that back-to-back yoga classes would cure all that ails us, if only we could squeeze them into our packed schedules. But here we are, still faced with one essential truth: All that green juice later, we feel overworked and overextended.
So instead of attempting to solve the perception of stress with a cup of tea or a new mindfulness app, it’s time we view it as an important tool that’s meant to tell us it’s time to step back from our desks and do less.
We’ve spent countless hours reading up on how stress and the emotions that come with it intersect with our lives at work. (The result is our new book, No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work.) Two of the most frequent questions people asked us in the process were how to reduce job-related stress and how to press pause on their to-do lists without an avalanche of guilt. We wrote the book for them (and for you). We’ll get to our best tips in a second, but in the meantime:
Take this quick self-assessment. How many of these statements apply to you?
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You get anxious if you haven’t checked your work email for 10 minutes.
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When your friends ask you how you’ve been, you start detailing a minor work inconvenience.
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Later, you dream about said inconvenience.
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You obsess about work during dinner, at the gym, and when you’re trying to fall asleep.
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Your mood depends almost completely on how work is going.
If you answered “a lot,” it might be time to take Drake’s advice: “You need to get done done done with work.“
Letting your job consume you is unhelpful and unhealthy. It makes small problems seem exceptional and places too much emphasis on casual conversations and interactions. Plus, it’s not just leaders or women or Virgos who care too much. Tons and tons of people are too attached to their work, and it’s—not to be dramatic—kinda ruining their lives. (Also, there’s little evidence it makes them better employees!) Enter our first new rule of emotion at work: Be less passionate about your job.
Why should you care less? Because it’s solves a lot of anguish. If you put just a little less emphasis on your responsibilities, you’re less likely to hyperventilate (and overthink) before a big presentation. You won’t be as frustrated by incompetent colleagues. You might even put your phone away at dinner with friends and you won’t have dreams about Slack as you backpack through Machu Picchu.
“Be less passionate about work” doesn’t mean “Don’t care about work.” It means: Care more about yourself. Carve out time for the people you love, for exercise, for guilt-free vacation. Remind yourself that few people look back at their lives and wish they had stayed at the office until 10pm.
But while “care less about work” is good advice, it tends to be easier said than done. So to start, we have some advice:
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Touch email once: When you open an email, do you have to respond to it immediately? Liz used to read all her emails first thing in the morning and, in an effort to get right to work, would then mark them all as unread with a plan to respond later in the day. That meant she spent the morning obsessively thinking about all the emails waiting in her inbox instead of focusing on her work. Now she sets aside time to go through all of her emails, and then moves on to other projects with a clear head.
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Block off a day: One day every week, Liz does not schedule meetings, calls, or even social events. This off day lets her catch up on her work, so the rest of the week doesn’t feel quite as hassled. If you can’t block off an entire day, try blocking off a few hours for focused work on your calendar, so that the time feels just as “real” as appointments or meetings.
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Set up an after-work ritual: Your brain will benefit from a signal that tells it, “Work is over!” Walk or bike home, meditate on your commute, listen to music, read a magazine, or lift weights, which some studies show boosts your mood more than cardio. At the end of each day, Cal Newport, author of Deep Work, transcribes loose notes into a master task list, shuts down his computer, and then says the phrase, “‘Schedule shutdown, complete.'”
“After I’ve uttered the magic phrase, if a work-related worry pops to mind, I always answer it with the following thought process: I said the termination phrase,” he writes.
- If you’re in a leadership role, set an example: After she had children, TV writer and producer Shonda Rhimes changed her work email signature to read, “Please Note: I will not engage in work emails after 7 pm or on weekends. IF I AM YOUR BOSS, MAY I SUGGEST: PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE.” Dan Calista, CEO of consulting firm Vynamic (whose motto is “Life is Short. Work Healthy.”), created an email policy called zzzMail. Employees cannot send each other emails on weeknights after 10pm, on weekends, or during holidays.
Finally, remember that time off—real, no-thinking-about-work time off—boosts your health and your productivity. Research shows that your productivity actually drops dramatically after you’ve worked 50 hours in a week. Working more than 10 hours a day dramatically increases your risk of heart issues. So if you’ve been burning the candle at both ends, consider this your permission slip to head home, put on sweatpants, and enjoy a night off. Your work will be there tomorrow.
Liz Fosslien and Mollie West-Duffy are the authors of the No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. For more of their hilariously accurate cartoons, follow them on Instagram or subscribe to their monthly newsletter.
