Four Daily Tools to Reduce Stress and Increase Creativity

Recent managers have asked me variants of the question “what is keeping you up at night?” It's an odd question that aims to get at your priorities, but does so by some back door that implies if you are not worrying at night, you are not engaged. Nothing keeps me up at night. That’s a conquest in itself, one that’s taken me a lifetime to achieve, and one they should be grateful for. Stressed should not be confused with productive.

A better question would have been “what problems are you passionate about solving now?” That is a very different question: one focuses on not dealing well with stress, the other gets to the root of the matter of what your priorities are. Anyone who knows me well knows I’ve been passionate about putting out great products and leading effective organizations.

I started on a journey toward dealing with stress in a healthy manner almost thirty years ago, following a health incident during a particularly stressful work period. I’ve recently spent some time thinking about what I’ve developed in my toolkit to help me fight this bad stress.  I boiled it down to a set of four practices that I practice daily. I already know you practice at least two of these: but the key is to do them with intentionality so that you gain the highest leverage.

Any manager worth his salt wants to be surrounded by leaders who can problem-solve without being overwhelmed, without passing stress down in the organization, and who can be productive over the long-term. You want your leaders to bring their best creativity and most passionate energy to the office every day.

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