I’m going to finish up my thoughts on stress by talking about the philosophy I’ve evolved, some of the tricks I use, and places where I sometimes stumble. I don’t expect to ever be stress free entirely (and probably wouldn’t want to be), but I know that the better I am at managing stress the […]

I just finished up a nine month project. It was a long road with lots of challenges, set backs, and obstacles – I suppose it was a typical project. As I look back I can see a few different kinds of stresses during that time, all interesting, all maybe less interesting in hindsight, but this […]

Stress affects everyone, but it’s easy to forget that. Once you get sensitized to it, it’s amazing to pick up on the behavioral changes that happen to co-workers under certain kinds of stress. We may consider their issue to be stressful, but we don’t get to decide. Don’t dismiss their reaction or trivialize it, it’s […]

Recently I suffered through a frustrating and contentious meeting, and that was stressful. I needed a walk, a few minutes to sort out why I was stressed, but instead I had to step right into another meeting. It was a follow up meeting to build out an implementation plan for a plan the team had […]

It’s not fair. I hear it a couple times a day. Sometimes they are right, sometimes not, but it’s how they feel and that is real enough. The first thing I do is listen, because that’s the first thing they need. Once they’ve explained (vented!) then I can tell them what I think: I agree, […]

One thing I’ve learned is that even losing one hour of sleep or just not sleeping well degrades my ability to handle stress. It feels wimpy to say that, I should be able to handle losing an hour of sleep! Maybe I’ll get to a point where it won’t, but I suspect it’s just how […]

2012-03-25 14:20:45