An antidote to stress
Image by izhar ahamed from Pixabay
A week ago, we christened our daughter. We had just left for the church with not much extra time to spare when I realized that we had forgotten an important detail – The christening gown… After the child, this is perhaps the second most important thing for the ceremony, so forgetting it at home is quite the achievement. In a case like this, you better make sure that you left too early because doing an unplanned detour back home to pick something up costs a lot of time that you do not have. At least that is the obvious solution; never leave at the last minute but instead wait a while at the destination. That will give you the margin you need. But i think there is another way that is even more important, at least for me.
One of the things that stresses me out more than anything is to run around searching for things when I need them. Especially when I have an important deadline, like travel arrangements, meetings or even the christening of my daughter. The anti-stress solution I am thinking about is to prepare and pack everything the day before. Honestly, there is no excuse to not put the gown in the car the day before. When talking about single occasions like a christening that happens a couple of times per life at most, there is no routine or habits that will aid you. The only safe way is to pack in advance. It is probably a personality trait, but there are few things I am worse at than packing and preparing under stress.
I recently went on a small business trip. That involves catching a flight and arriving with some margins at the airport at least two times. Here, I faired a little better by preparing every single item, piece of clothing and bags the day before. I put them in a nice little spot in my office so that I only had to follow a step-by-step brainless procedure to achieve great success. This is honestly wonderful, because I won’t have to double check anything. I just get dressed and go. Perfect. Now, this is the principle that can and should be extrapolated to everyday life.
The secret is to have a designated place for everything and to unconditionally put every little thing back in its correct place when you are done with them. You should always put your keys, your wallet and so on and so forth in a designated place every time. When you have this habit nailed down, you will realize that you won’t spend any more time running around searching for stuff. It often takes some extra time to place the thing back at its corresponding place, but in the long run when you consider the amount of stress that is eliminated, I would say it is a no-brainer. It will be more difficult to make a mistake, and that is often or always a very good idea.
Another life-hack that is highly recommended is to prepare a travel bag. A carry-on bag that is always prepared to pick up and go, complete with everything you need for a couple of overnights. That way, you can leave with very short notice and energy. It’ll cost a little extra, but you will save a lot of stress and time in the long run. This is the same principle as for professional measurement equipment. At our company, we have a couple of bags and flight cases, and it is crucial to have a very strict definition of what goes into each bag and where. The measurement kits are used by different persons and thus it becomes much more important that the contents never change. Here, the value of proper preparation even scales exponentially. So, if you follow this principle in a professional setting, you should probably follow it at home as well.