Stressful times for all of us these days. So Harvard Business Publishing bloggers Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek offer three ways to beat burnout.
Read their post for more details, but the top line recommendations are:
- Be smart about managing your work Manage your time rather than time managing you. That is, work effectively.
- Embrace renewal Exercise, take rests, go on vacations.
- Do work that matters to you If you are going to work hard, make it work that is meaningful.
In case you worry that your feelings of stress make you a wimp, the post includes compelling statistics that show just how prevalent work pressure is. Check out these numbers from the American Psychological Association.
- A third of Americans report living with extreme stress.
- 48% of Americans report that their stress has increased over the past five years.
- 31% of employed adults report difficulty managing work and family responsibilities.
And that was before this year's economic crisis.
How do you combat stress in the work place?
Sean Silverthorne
Sean Silverthorne is the editor of HBS Working Knowledge, which provides a first look at the research and ideas of Harvard Business School faculty. Working Knowledge, which won a Webby award in 2007, currently records 4 million unique visitors a year. He has been with HBS since 2001.
Silverthorne has 28 years experience in print and online journalism. Before arriving at HBS, he was a senior editor at CNET and executive editor of ZDNET News. While at At Ziff-Davis, Silverthorne also worked on the daily technology TV show The Site, and was a senior editor at PC Week Inside, which chronicled the business of the technology industry. He has held several reporting and editing roles on a variety of newspapers, and was Investor Business Daily's first journalist based in Silicon Valley.
