How to Manage Stress in Business

Stress is one of the most difficult things to navigate when running a business. The weight of the business, having so much to do on a day-to-day basis, managing staff, needing a positive turnover, the stresses are endless. At The Versatile Support Team Ltd we focus on taking on tasks from your business which can help you as an owner become more organised, focused, better time management and overall feel less pressured of having to do everything.

Identify your biggest stressors

When running a business there are many varied factors that can cause stress to a business owner. But when you get to a point where you don’t even have to look at the task ahead to feel stressed, then it is time to delegate. However, you need to realise which tasks are stressing you out the most and what can be done by someone else. Could it be that you look at your diary and cannot compute what’s going on? Or that you are stressed about digital tax being necessary in the next few years? Once you figure out what is causing the stress then you can focus on how to solve it.

Learn how to prioritise effectively

This is a key skill that you need as a business owner, knowing what to do first but most importantly what can be left. If you get it wrong, it could be fatal to your business as your left with unsatisfied clients and automated emails taking up your time. The following is how you should tackle your tasks, inbox, meetings etc

1.    Urgent + important – make sure to do these first

2.    Important but not urgent – Schedule these for later

3.    Urgent but not important – delegate these where possible

4.    Neither urgent nor important – try to limit how many you receive of these

By organising your tasks and knowing which ones need to be completed first can give you a structured to do list reducing the feeling of being overwhelmed and more productive.

Stop trying to do it all - outsource

The biggest thing I hear as a virtual assistant is that outsourcing is for big businesses only, which couldn’t be more wrong. In small businesses, owners think that they must do everything just because they're a small business, which leads to burnout rather than productivity. When you're spending too much time on your emails, socials, bookkeeping, I think its time to outsource so you can focus on delivering your service.

The Versatile Support Team Ltd can do just that for you. Specialising in administrative tasks, The Versatile Support Team Ltd can take on the tasks that cause stress, giving you more time to focus on growing your business and doing what you love. It could be the smallest of tasks you just need to delegate to someone else to make the biggest difference.

Set boundaries and stick to them

When you start your business, you want to take on anything and everything just to make business. We are all guilty for it, but to make you still enjoy and love what you're doing your going to have to set boundaries. Just because you are the owner, doesn’t mean you have to be available 24/7 and say yes to everything. You still need to focus on that work life balance for yourself in order to provide the best service and recharge.

Make time for breaks

Even though breaks mean that you're not working, they are equally as important as working. Making breaks for yourself allows you to recharge, stepping away from the screen giving your eyes a break but also giving your brain a break. Stepping back and going for a walk or reading a book gives you something else to focus on so when you do come back you have a fresh mind, which can allow more ideas and a high productivity rate.

Get organised with systems and tools

Without structure, the likelihood is that you aren’t going to have organisation. You can use different productivity tools and apps to help structure your workload making you feel less overwhelmed. Some that we use at The Versatile Support Team Ltd include:

-     ToDoIst (free app) to delegate tasks and create to do lists

-     Apple Notes so we can all add notes for meetings, so everything is in the same place

-     TimeTree so everyone’s appointments etc are scheduled and available to everyone

-     OneDrive/Sharepoint so all our documents are in one place and accessible to everyone.

These apps allow us to be organised as a team so we can run smoothly and have no stress trying to find a document in the mist of our devices.

Written by Nicole Taylor

Virtual Assistant and Content Creator

The Versatile Support Team Ltd