Stress comes from change and change means you don't know what will happen. Coincidentally, you never know in life what will happen so at worst you could be stressed to max merely for being alive.
There are two approaches to this uninviting uncertainty. Either you try to block it out or you accept it as a fact of life. In the first case you want to build as many static and seemingly permanent corners in life as possible, using methods such as routines and risk-avoidance. In the latter case you set out to do whatever you must because you don't know if you'll live tomorrow and you have nothing to lose.
Most people settle with something in between. If you intend to block change, it will break through somewhere else and you suffer again and that is like patching a sinking ship. If you intend to accept change, you demand a lot from yourself and you will certainly be tried for that up to the highest standards, but you will possibly come out if not enlightened at least balanced and realistic about life.
Stress is good. It shows you're holding on to something you shouldn't be holding on to.
Exactly. Being unable to accept and digest changes gives you a feeling of living on the edge (sinking ship), being crushed by life's urge to change you - it's horrible. I've been there, not long ago.
Aging people often seem to experience that - there are the ones who get along with their age's demands and sacrifices, while others become addicted to plastic surgery (patching the ship).
Another source of stress is: Striving to be somewhere else. Whenever you take a shower, or eat, or lie in bed, and you feel that you ought to be somewhere else (working) that's stress. That not only applies to whereabouts, but also to situations like "I should be ready with X so I can take on Y". To reduce that, you have to establish a clear declaration of working and resting time - resting means really switching off, not allowing thoughts to pull you back into work mode.
EDIT: I think the word I would use for countering this type of stress is "dedication".
Exactly right! If we don't 'live in the moment,' focusing on whatever we are doing, that is stressful and increases unhappiness. Pardon a cliche, but it is so very correct: people who live in the past tend to be depressed, people who live in the future tend to be anxious, and people are generally happy when they are absorbed in their current activity.
I used to get this "should be/doing somewhere/something else" feeling a lot while browsing Facebook. I would see peoples updates and think I was slacking, or not seizing my day or whatever. That feeling quickly disappeared when I stopped using Facebook. I eliminated that external "motivation" of others updates and focused on where I was and what I was doing at that moment, not what I could be doing.
Definitely, I think that striving to be somewhere else or just the idea of not having everything done for something that you are dedicated to can be a source of stress. A clear plan for when and how you are going to handle your Todo's can help relieve some of this stress.
Certainly, but it's a little more nuanced. If the uncertainty is on your end (the decision making part), then it's fixable.
If, on the other hand it's something completely out of your control (waiting to see if you were accepted into college), then the uncertainty is of a different nature.
That is so true. The way I phrase it is: "the hard choices are the ones where there is no wrong choice". One of the choices may be slightly "more right" than the others, but none of them are bad choices and the unknowables completely swamp the knowables, so just make a decision and move on.
The OP describes one of the strategies that David Allen recommends in his famous book: Getting things done.
It is about freeing the mind for productivity by getting rid of all distractions. The challenge is to identify the distractions and get them done immediately.
If you want more discoveries of that kind, this book is very useful.
Yep, just what I was going to mention. I started using GTD a few months ago, and it is a great way to rip the bandaid off of dozens of little not-yet-made decisions. As part of GTD, you regularly turn every "to do" into a next action step...or throw it out. It really cleans out your brain from all the things that you "might do someday" but haven't decided yet.
I agree with the author's first point in full. The second I feel is moot.
"Decide what your priorities are quickly and follow through. If you feel compelled to change your priorities, do it quickly."
You shouldn't do/think/execute anything you regard as a priority unless you can do so without second-guessing yourself. This is about being content with your decision, which usually only happens when you've weighed out the pros/cons and understand most of the implications.
That being said, I agree with manmal that having a "clear declaration of working and resting time" is hugely important. Otherwise you end up treating others poorly because when you're spending time with them, you're actually focusing your attention on stuff you "have" to get done, and as a result you don't contribute 100% to the current social situation (bad).
It's interesting that the trait of unmade decisions is framed in the context of stress.
My experience on the flip side is that a couple of kids I went to school with, who have since been very successful, actually made decisions very quickly. To the point where some must have just been guesswork or ini-mini-miny-mo (although no doubt the fact they were successful means it'll be dubbed as "instinct").
So while I'm still pondering decision 1, they already decided 5 things. Sure, 3 failed, but 2 were good decisions. And since I noticed that in them, I've noticed it in other successful people.
It's not a broad brush assessment, but something to think about. Two steps forward and one back it probably better than one step forward in the long run. So just make the damn decision and see what comes of it.
In my personal experience, I start deferring things when there's something else going on that I don't want to deal with. Usually the something else is that I haven't accepted that I "don't know" something.
It's all perspective, I guess. I was pissed when I joined a shop that wouldn't give me a phone. I had been cell phone free for 5 years and didn't want my own. Instead, I get a per-paycheck stipend to cover work-induced costs.
The up-side, however, is that I felt free to unplug my desk phone and totally ignore it. For some reason, that really reduced my stress.
I came to the same conclusion about a month ago. Some of the examples he listed I solve by tossing a coin and leaving it up to chance. I only do this when I really don't care about the outcome. Before tossing the coin, I make sure of this, if I prefer an outcome, then I don't need to toss. There was a famous quote that more or less said the same thing.
Tossing a coin is actually a great mechanism for bringing your unconscious into the decision. Flip the coin. If you suddenly feel yourself wishing it fell the other way, then your gut is telling you to to go with the other decision. Most likely your gut doesn't care and you can just go whichever the coin falls.
The subject is "sources", which is plural. You can break it down like this:
1. Two sources of stress that apply to you.
2. Two sources (of stress) that apply to you.
3. Two sources that apply to you.
4. Sources that apply to you.
If there was only one source of stress, it would indeed be "A source of stress that (probably) applies to you". But because it's two sources, apply is correct.
my main source of stress is information overload. most of the news and blogs i read everyday are not directly actionable, and it's taking up mental space.
But what is preventing you from reducing your information overload. Stop following some of the news,blogs etc. To me
though passive information makes me feel aware , too much of it comes in the way of actively improving oneself.
Information overload can be a huge opponent sometimes. I had a hard time fighting it, so much that I still consider it a true addiction (and still avoid falling on the same trap again).
When I started using firefox for the first time (whoa, tabs!), I started opening dozens of tabs at the same time, thinking I would read them all, one after another. But I could not, and their contents were interesting enough to prevent me from closing them. This habit followed for a long time, I installed a session saver, then I started using a feed reader. I had dozens of subscriptions and, if I didn't check my feeds for a whole day, soon there would be a hundred of them in my inbox — and I had to check them, or else I could lose information.
The stress came from the fear of losing information. It didn't matter if it were tabs, saved sessions or feeds, the idea of not reading any of those interesting articles was something hard to accept. I had to learn how to let this river of information flow without wanting to consume everything. No more feeds, no more than 9 tabs opened, no more saving sessions. This works for me now (most of the time).
Since you are new here, rather than downvote you I'll point out that single-word or otherwise low-content comments are magnets for down votes. If you agree with another comment and you want to let that commenter know, but don't want to comment in depth, use the upvote arrow. Hope this helps :)
There are two approaches to this uninviting uncertainty. Either you try to block it out or you accept it as a fact of life. In the first case you want to build as many static and seemingly permanent corners in life as possible, using methods such as routines and risk-avoidance. In the latter case you set out to do whatever you must because you don't know if you'll live tomorrow and you have nothing to lose.
Most people settle with something in between. If you intend to block change, it will break through somewhere else and you suffer again and that is like patching a sinking ship. If you intend to accept change, you demand a lot from yourself and you will certainly be tried for that up to the highest standards, but you will possibly come out if not enlightened at least balanced and realistic about life.
Stress is good. It shows you're holding on to something you shouldn't be holding on to.