Do you often come home from a long day at work, with your mind still buzzing from the days activities? Do you find that even though you are at home, some of the office stress has snuck in with you? Maybe a long daily commute home leaves you tired, wired and a bit frazzled?

After a recent career move, resulting in a greater responsibility, I found myself coming home every day still feeling stressed and under pressure - not good for me, not good for my girlfriend. I figured there had to be some simple ways to trigger a more relaxed state of mind when I came home.

5 simple steps to minimizing work-related stress when you arrive home:

1.  Stay organized at work - Track your priorities, manage your tasks, write down your To-dos… The topic of managing yourself at work is far too long to get into here, but by doing so, you are clearing your mind of all the distractions from work, making it easier to disconnect when you get home.
2. Enjoy your commute - Whether you are travelling by car, train or bike - use the time to relax a bit; get some fresh air, listen to some music, enjoy the scenery (if you can) and use your commute home to rid yourself of some of that stress.
3. Look forward to getting home - If you’re dreading getting home then you will just be exacerbating your stress levels; if you know that your home is going to be neat, tidy and organized; that your evening will be pleasant and relaxing and that you can forget about work for a while, you will be re-focussing your energy on a more positive experience, and reducing work-related stress.
4. Disconnect - A difficult thing to do in the days of BlackBerries, remote email and corporate mobile phones is to simply disconnect yourself from your work communications - switch them all off and enjoy a bit of peace. The likelihood of you being needed for something that can’t wait till tomorrow is realistically quite small, so give yourself and your family a break!
5. Use an Anti-stress Basket - The main tip I implemented was to put a simple basket on my shoe rack, just inside my front door. On this basket I put an “Anti-Stress Basket” label, and in it I keep a small tear-off pad and a pen. Every day when I come in, I see this basket (a strong visual reminder) and remember not to be stressed; If there is anything that is particularly bothering me, I’ll write it on a bit of paper and chuck it in the basket; lastly, I’ll take a few deep breaths and continue indoors. Bonus Tip: It’s very enjoyable to empty the basket into the bin once a week and throw out your stress for good!

In my latest job, working as Lead Developer for Mailock, I attend a lot of meetings. In spending more and more of my time in meetings I have come to realize 2 key things - One: Most (if not all) meetings could stand to be a bit shorter. Two: Business meetings seem to breed business cards.

I am currently writing a series of posts on how to simplify meetings, and below propose a simple solution to all those business cards you may have collected.

3 Steps to Business Card Nirvana

1. Organize your “Keepers” - Those business cards that you really want to keep (be ruthless) should be organized neatly - stick them in a business card book, or file them neatly in your organizer; make sure they are put somewhere you can reach easily.
2. Transfer the Card Details to a Computer - Go through each card and transfer all the details into a computer file somewhere - Use the Contacts section in your Email client, type them into a dedicated contact manager like Act! or put them in a central database. If possible, put them somewhere that can sync to your mobile phone, so you need only manage one address book. Do this for cards you will bin, and the cards you’ll keep.
3. Get rid of the unwanted Cards - Bin the, recycle them, shred them (if you need to protect privacy) or get creative with them (see below) - just make sure you only ever keep the cards you really need.

A Great Use for Unwanted Business Cards

I tend to recycle all of the cards that I get given (and now I actively try to refuse them if I can), but Dr. Jeannine Mosely of the Institute for Figuring has a great idea for those of us with too much time and far too many business cards…

Build a Business Card Menger Sponge!

Being a confirmed geek, technophile and all round lover of gadgets, I have a LOT of chargers - iPod, Phone, BlackBerry, Camera and laptop used daily, with a dozen others (including electric toothbrush, shaver) which are charged weekly. Consequently, I have a lot of cable clutter which is very frequently spread from place to place, as I spend several nights a week at my girlfriends and travel home regularly.

I wanted to come up with a simple solution to this problem, which had to fulfill several criteria:

• Simple, cheap and easy to use
• Avoid having multiple chargers plugged in at once, or leaving chargers plugged in
• Be portable, so I could take relevant chargers to work or my girlfriends flat
• Be organized, so that my charger use was simple and controlled
• Be understandable, so others could charge stuff easily using my kit

My charging solution

The solution I came up with is one I have been using for several years, and has worked perfectly for me - combining all the factors above, and probably costing me only a few pounds to set-up.

1. Store your Chargers - Get a shoe box, basket or other open container that you can keep all your chargers in - dig them all out of their various hiding places and stick them in the box.
2. Bag your Chargers - This is the clincher, and takes this solution from simple to sorted. Grab a bunch of Ziploc bags (or resealable sandwich bags) and put each charger into its own bag, with it’s own mess of cable. No more spaghetti junction.
3. Label your Chargers - Label each charger so you know what it goes with, either by sticking half and index card in the bag with the device details on, or by printing or writing a sticky label and affixing to the charger itself - It really does help to know what goes with what, and it helps others to use your charging kit.

This system is very easy to use, very easy to implement and can help you keep your charger chaos under control!

[Update 05/06/07: Those of you who found this article interesting, but who are looking for a more high-tech solution might like this post on Unclutterer, about finding the perfect charging station.]