It’s officially February – a time when many people abandon their New Years resolution while others are saying, “January was a trial month, I’ll start now!” Regardless of what you chose to give up or vowed to do more of, there are a few universal things you should always be working towards, and one of those things is stressing less.
Stress is bad for you and there are numerous studies to prove it, from negative effects on your memory and long term health to the simple fact that it feels bad. Google released its list of the “how-to” questions that saw the biggest spike in number of searches the week before and after New Year’s Day in 2015. At the top of the list: “How to get rid of stress.”
The American Psychological Association Suggests 5 Steps to help lower your stress: Identify what’s causing stress, build strong relationships, walk away when you’re angry, rest your mind, and get help. If the answer to #1 is work overload we’ve got a simple trick to help you get back your peace of mind.
Mitigating Stress At the Office
According to Forbes, the average business professional has 30 to 100 projects on their plate. While trying to complete those tasks, studies found that modern workers were interrupted seven times an hour and distracted up to 2.1 hours a day. In those working conditions it can be incredibly difficult to get your work done and retain a work life balance, which is why more than 40% of adults say they have difficulty sleeping due to the stress of their day.
Most lists will give you answers like, “schedule your day for productivity,” or “eat and sleep better” but what about an actionable step you can take to make your day less stressful? Our answer for you is automation. There are many ways that you can set up technology to do work for you. Here are 4 of our favorites:
1. Sync your Google Calendars and iCal
Keeping track of appointments for not only yourself but your boss or kids can be a huge source of stress. Syncing your Google Calendar for work with your phone calendar will make your schedule so much easier to stay on top of it. Whether you’re out at lunch, sitting on your computer, or prepping for the next day at home, your calendars will be effortlessly up to day. Here’s how.
2. Integrate your Cloud Apps
If you use cloud apps at work like a CRM (Salesforce, Infusionsoft etc.) or a program to send emails (MailChimp, Reg Online, Marketo) then logging in and out of different apps can be a pain. Accessing information in all of the different apps can also add stress to even the most menial task. By integrating your cloud apps, you not only let them create a hub of information, but eliminate hours of manual data entry that would take time away from those 30-100 projects you are working on! Learn more about integration here.
3. Schedule an Email for Later with Boomerang
If someone is going out of town or you’ve scheduled a meeting over a week later, you need to send a follow up email at a later date so that they will remember you. But how are you supposed to remember to send the follow up email? Boomerang and other email scheduling tools allow you to create emails in advance and set a specific date and time to send it. Automating your follow up guarantees you’ll never miss an opportunity. Check out Boomerang.
4. Use Slack as Your Command Center
If you use Slack or Hipchat at work to keep the communication flowing in the office, why shouldn’t you also use it to execute work? If you get a notification from Zendesk about a high priority ticket, wouldn’t it be nice to view details on that customer and create a new note in Salesforce without ever leaving Slack? Now you can ask Workbot for Slack to do things for you like create a new lead in Salesforce or give you details on a customer from Mixpanel. See Workbot’s Capabilities here.
From automating the simple things like your calendars to the highly important task of integrating your business cloud applications, automation means you’ll get more done and have less to do. Subscribe to the Workato blog for more productivity tips and tricks!
