9 Ways To Decompress Following A Stressful Week

Last week was a crazy one for me. So much so I can barely remember the events. Does this ever happen to you? There's just so much to do that you place yourself on autopilot and go to work only to come out feeling like a zombie?

I don't allow that to happen often. In fact, I try not to let it happen ever. However, last week I was doing the job of many. My assistant was on vacation. In addition to that, I had networking events, client meetings and our inaugural roundtable on the calendar. Not to mention my husband was away golfing in Vegas. What was I thinking?

Now it's time to reflect, recharge, and resolve. So, that's what I am doing today. If I don't take the time to do that, I will make the huge mistake of carrying the stress of juggling into the days to come.

So how do I decompress?

1. I review my calendar from the past week. Yes, practically everything in my life resides on my calendar. In fact, I live and die by it. Reviewing my calendar allows me to reflect on things that seem to be a blur right now.
2. I journalize the events and try to really capture important activities, thoughts and most importantly, feelings.
3. I categorize and compartmentalize. First, from the list of things I did, I categorize them all in order of importance. Then I compartmentalize them into buckets of do or delegate. If it's something I either must do, am the only one who can do or I want to learn to do, it goes in the do category. Everything else goes into the delegate category. This week there's a lot of delegate (uh oh Sandra it's coming your way).
4. I ask myself some hard questions about whether I did something we shouldn't be doing at all. This one is difficult because I've then got to address it. Anything that I should not be doing has got to be dropped.
5. I drop the don't do. I love the work that I do and to continue to enjoy it, I have to be intentional about the elimination process. Think of elimination as taking out the trash. It's got to go. Otherwise, it starts to stink up the whole place (Hey that's a blog post all of it's own).
6. I follow up on actions and connections and close any open gaps. I want to start the next week fresh which means open items from this week need to be resolved. I take quiet moments to get that done.
7. I realign with my roadmap. Where should I be, what should I be doing and what are my next steps? These are the questions I challenge myself to answer. Realigning with my roadmap is recharging all within itself. It helps me get right back to my why and places me right back into mojo mode.
8. I give myself permission to take a break. I take time to do some things I love doing or I simply do nothing at all. This week I decompressed first by going on a date night with my hubby after he returned from his trip. Then I spent some quality time with my girlfriends. It was the coolest way to recharge.
9. I get started with a fresh new perspective and an intentional direction.

Stress management for the CEO is critical to the health and welfare of your business. Listento my podcast interview with Leslie Garcia which will air in May where will be discussing stress management tips. You won't want to miss that. Stay tuned and be on the lookout. Until then, remember it's important to the life of your business that you remain intentional. Take yourself off autopilot and get back on course.