The other day, I ran across this 1983 New York Times article questioning whether “stress addiction” was a legitimate phenomena. Given the behavior of the typical cellphone toting, iPad poking, Twittering Tumblr-tagging teen, or the number of people you see walking down the street eating lunch as they text and talk to the earpiece in their ear, I think we can safely lay that debate to rest, and assume that some form of stimulation or stress addiction seems to afflict a lot of modern people.

So why does it seem like some people seem comfortable, even eager to add more stress-inducing activities to their life, while others seem to be trying everything imaginable to reduce the stress factors in their life? I think one of the first problems in “dealing with stress” is that there isn’t even a widely accepted definition of what it IS. This University of Maryland page says it’s a form of anxiety, which “is a feeling of fear, unease, and worry”. Merriam Webster says it is “a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation”.

Good Stress & Bad Stress

That dictionary definition above highlights a common misconception about the broad array of things we might call “stress”. From a common sense point of view, and in a view that is becoming more pervasive in health and wellness circles, stress can actually be a GOOD thing. In its simplest form, it’s a heightened reaction to external challenges or stimuli. So as long as the those external stimuli aren’t so persistent and intense as to overwhelm the individual, it’s a healthy survival response that helps us meet and overcome challenges. Historically, war has been one human activity that would reliably overwhelm the human organism, leaving many of its survivors with sometimes permanent stress-induced mental and physical health problems. But what about the crazy, stressful activities that people INTENTIONALLY engage in, like skydiving, bungee jumping, running for political office, or working in the finance industry?

Maybe You’re A Stress Addicted Chaos Junky

Strangely, like almost anything else, it is in fact possible to be addicted to stress or chaos, as mentioned at the top. The same chemical processes that are going on in the brain when you’re screaming and waving your arms on the trading floor may be very similar to those that are occurring when when you’re overindulging in your drug of choice. I’ve been on both sides of this fence, so I can speak with some expertise. Before I entered recovery a few years ago, I maintained the most immaculately orderly home and work environments you will encounter. The most common remarks people would make about my character would usually reference my organization, cleanliness, and grooming. Little did they know that these external things were the only thing anchoring the turmoil in my heart and head; my external world was a desperate attempt to maintain order SOMEWHERE, and physical objects and strict schedules make this fairly easy. Interestingly, after a few years of personal evolution in recovery, I find my home and workplace are often a lot messier, but I’m probably getting ten times as much done as before, and perhaps more importantly, I’m HAPPIER.

Your Personal Best Stress Level

I’m of the opinion that – as is so often the case in contemporary culture – the emphasis on reducing stress in our lives is oversimplified, ill-conceived, and is an easy monetization tool for the health care industry. A couple of problems with most people’s approach to stress are that a.) they lack the self-awareness to usefully define their stress levels, and b.) they lack the self-awareness to usefully define their stress levels. Yes, the two reasons I’m suggesting are the same. On the one hand, many people aren’t aware that the very tools they use to create organization in their lives are in fact the number one source of their chaotic and stressful existence. On the other hand, most people are unable to separate anger over personal dissatisfaction (i.e. frustration with unexpected outcomes, etc.) from a normal “stress” reaction. I personally THRIVE on a significant level of stress. The thing that will take me into an unhealthy zone in this regard is WAITING. Not because I demand that things be done on “my time”, but because I’m most centered when I’m “doing”. So if – like me – you struggle to maintain a high enough stress level in your life to satisfy your addictive nature, below are some tools I recommend for enhancing the overall chaos level in your life. Maybe embracing them all can make you finally snap, and then ease back into your own “good level”.

5 Sure-fire Tools To Enhance the Level of Chaos in your Life

Email

If you really want to escalate the level of disruption, distraction, and disorder in your day, use email. According to this NYT piece, in a 2007 study a group of Microsoft workers took – on average – 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. Email is a great tool for chaos generation all around. Also make sure you always have at least 10 messages in your inbox that require replies, send important messages as you LEAVE the office each day, and check it first thing in the morning. I jest of course. I just named three of the basic things that destroy attitudes and productivity. The point is, email is a useful tool, but if you don’t use it with some conscious thought, it will eat half of your day, and keep you in a perpetual tizzy. Empty your inbox. Could that one message be handled better with a quick phone call? MAKE IT. Is there going to be anything in your inbox at 7am besides problems that someone left you late yesterday? Probably not. Wait a couple of hours and get your workday going before you disrupt it!

Multitasking

Face it. You’re not. Unless you’re amongst the 2 percent of people who CAN, according to research, and there’s a 98 percent chance you aren’t. So really all you’re doing when you multitask is under-performing, and stressing yourself out. But if you really are seeking that level of stimulation, there’s probably no better way to achieve your goal than texting and talking while driving, typing an email while talking on the phone, or doing all of this while you’re having lunch with me. Because then I’LL get stressed out, because ill-manners make me angry, and since you’re on the phone, my polite nature will force me to wait until you’re done to scream at you, which will add to YOUR stress level.

Saving Stuff

According to 2010 figures from the White House Office of Management and Budget, Americans spent 8.8 billion hours completing government forms. That’s just government forms! In America, employees print an average of 45 sheets of paper per day, and 30 percent of all employees’ time is spent trying to find lost documents. No wonder there are over 50,000 primary storage facilities in the US alone. We’re all afraid of throwing that thing out, because Lord knows when you’re going to need it! But seriously. Try a system like the Noguchi Filing System or a variation of the 43 Folders method, and those piles of documents that are crucial to national security – even though you don’t know what’s in them – will disappear.

Meetings

Have lots and lots of meetings. Hell, have a special meeting just to talk about all the meetings you’re having. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unnecessary meetings cost U.S. businesses approximately $37 billion in 2005 alone. I think your team should meet to discuss that problem. I’d share more thoughts on how the the travel and task switching aspects of meetings consume more time than the meetings themselves, but I’m late for a meeting.

Time Travel

You’re going to find this hard to believe, but I have a time travel machine. In fact, this is one of my favorite chaos generation tools. I bet you have one too, and don’t even realize it. It’s right in your head. I’d bet a nickel that one of the greatest productivity inhibiting, stress-generating tools at our disposal is in use nearly constantly by all but the most advanced Zen Masters. I have to confess that even while typing these words, I thought about a couple of meetings this week, and answered the phone twice, transporting myself across time and space to a place full of problems that actually don’t concern me right now, and that I can do nothing about. Want to stay in a constantly stressed state? Think about everything BUT where and when you are right now.

The Solutions

I don’t have one. That’s up to you. There are thousands of books and websites out there offering solutions to your stress-related problems, but frankly, I find merely searching and browsing these sources stress-inducing. Why not try a simple approach. Pause. Take an honest look at how you use technology, for starters. And then examine if you’re simply angry that things aren’t the way you want them to be, and get to work on changing them in manageable steps.

One way to look at diet is that eating for pleasure leads to lethargy, and eating tactically can lead to positive changes. If you’re struggling with motivation and depression, and you’ve eliminated any serious psychological or health problems as possible causes, consider trying this kind of eating for a week, and let us know what you think. Please consult a doctor before beginning any new dietary regimen. There are only 6 rules:

1. Eat more frequent, smaller meals, always including a little protein

2. Eat ample green vegetable with every meal (including breakfast!)

3. Drink at least 8 ounces of water every hour

4. Eat NO simple carbs (like sugar or processed flour)

5. Eat a wide variety of foods (fish, poultry, venison/vegetables/nuts/fruit), but not too much of any single food at a sitting

6. Cut out the alcohol and cut down the caffeine

Many of the “fat burning diets” take a similar approach, and if you’re inclined to follow a diet with a brand name, be our guest. In any case, pay attention to your energy level, your mood, and your productivity, and let us know if you notice any positive changes. We think you will!

Recently Nick and I asked ourselves “How come our meetings are so dang productive?” We often accomplish more in a thirty minute meeting than we do with other people in TWO HOUR meetings. Who has two and three hour meetings, anyway? Three hour meetings always make me think of what happened to Gilligan and the gang when taking this kind of leisure cruise of productivity. And as much as I might enjoy being trapped on a deserted island with Marianne, I have things I’d like to do first. So what’s our big secret? As Nick and I discussed it, we isolated a few simpler points, but as I pondered the idea, something else occurred to me that is a little more “play and creativity” oriented. I’ll share that after the basics about why meetings in general are often not only unproductive, but COUNTERproductive.

Meetings vs Blamestorming

So first let’s make a disctinction here. I think of meetings and actual work as separate things. Meetings are for reviewing, assessing, communicating, deciding, and planning. If you’re on a team of political strategists, your meetings of course may be most of the work you do. But if you’re in any kind of production oriented work, whether it’s running a publication, building cars, or playing in a band, the bulk of the work is done elsewhere. Meetings are for fine-tuning a process, they shouldn’t BE the process. They also shouldn’t be thought of as a grievance forum. Actual grievances should be addressed directly in a separate process, whether it’s an honest one-on-one dialog, a “complaint box”, or forming a union and going on strike. Of course, good management should be aware enough of grievances to avoid that last option, but blamestorming sessions are worse than counterproductive, they can even be destructive.

The Secrets To Efficient & Productive Meetings

So the actual mechanisms behind quick and purposeful meetings are incredibly simple. Which may be the exact reason so many people overlook them. They’re just too darn easy. Below are a few really simple methods for keeping meetings quick and painless. Leaving more time for the kids, golf, laying on the beach, wasting time on the web, or that new knitting pattern you’ve been dying to try.

1.) Know Why You’re Meeting
You’d be surprised how many people don’t use simple lists, or routinely discover what they’re talking about WHILE THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT IT. Before you even arrange a meeting, identify key topics, put them in concise lists, and identify specific tasks or needs under each item.

2.) Share The Memo
Yeah, the old workplace joke about “didn’t you get the memo” is all fine and dandy. Until someone PUTS OUT AN EYE. Which is what I personally do to people who act like you should know what they’re thinking. Before the actual meeting, share the list. Let’s use the archaic term “agenda”. I break up the tedium of this with amusing subject lines in the email like “Here’s The Plan Stan”. And continue at the top of the message with “What’s the agenda, Brenda? The arc, Mark? The deal, Neil? The intent, Kent?”

3.) Time Is An Illusion
“Lunch time doubly so”, as Douglas Adams said. Which is poppycock. Time is a reliable, mechanized measurement. The human mouth can only form words at a rate defined by its physical limitations, and although some human brains seem to utilize their neural networks more or less efficiently than others, the nerve impulsives themselves move at a fairly consistent rate. Know your material, and know how much you can talk about in an hour.

4.) The Time Barrier
Ever notice how people (maybe even YOU) tend to hit a point during classes or meetings where they just start nodding off? We’ve all been there. One minute you seem fully concious, the next you suddently jolt upright with spittle on your chin, with a murmur of voices bubbling in your head. You have just hit the t-~i~-m-~e  b-~a~-r-~r~-i-~e~-r. A combination of decreased blood flow and blood sugar cycles mean that the optimum uninterrupted meeting time is under an hour. Common wisdom says that it’s about 45-50 minutes. No matter what you’re doing at this point in a meeting, take a break. Ten minutes is probably good. Longer, and you risk losing focus.

5.) Pretend You’re In A Band
This is the more “play and creativity” oriented thing I mentioned at the top. If you’ve ever played music with others (Nick & I had a band years ago) you know that there’s a sort of point/counterpoint that occurs in a lot of ways. I think this is a reflexive underpinning of how our meetings work, and it’s not that hard to break down the elements:

a.) Know the difference between “jamming” and the disciplined playing of a part.
Nick and I keep an ongoing acute awareness of whether or not we’ve digressed. Digression is inevitable, but when we do it, we allow it for a moment, perhaps apologize if it’s lengthy, and then zero back in on the topic.

b.) Limit the solos, or have a cigar.
Counterpoint is the basis of all great songs. When someone has a good riff going, let it rip. If it’s turning into self-indulgent bandstanding, be comfortable checking or being checked on it. “Soloing” isn’t the same as digressing. It’s hogging. I used to keep a wrapped cigar at meetings. When someone went on a big ego kick, I’d hand them the cigar. This became a regular part of our meetings; a humorous way to check someone’s soapboxing.

c.) Parts is Parts
I worked with a successful session musician and songwriter years ago. He would jokingly say “parts is parts”, referencing the fact that the best pop songs were really just good “parts” strung together artfully. This is true with work and planning too. Know how to break things into their components, and how they relate. Some projects spin off into related ideas, and if you don’t know the song well enough, you end up with a plodding, forced medley of ideas instead of focused, deliverable results.

6.) Know Why You’re Meeting
I already said this, right? But this is where WAY too many people screw up. At the end of a poorly executed meeting, everyone just wants to be done with things and move on to their next activity, right? Well first of all, try to get the meeting flow working so that at the end of the allotted time, you have about ten minutes to review what you’ve covered, so you can streamline the notes for the next meeting, and keep momentum. When you actually wrap up this way, meetings feel GREAT. It feels like you nailed the resolving note in an orchestral piece, and can literally go “TA DA!” When you walk out of the meeting, you should feel freer and more at ease than when you walked in.

Is Your Business Like A Business, Or Like A Band?

Bands and non-profits have a few interesting things in common. The first is that they’re often started by someone who is extremely passionate about something. The second is that the term “non-profit” is useful in referring to them. And the third is that the person that started them is often so convinced of the value of what they’re doing that they forget that the world doesn’t really give a damn what they think. Having worked with both, and having also worked on developing more “businessy” businesses, I’ve seen both how businesses fail by acting like bands, and bands fail by failing to act like businesses. I’ll be touching on ideas for treating your band like a business in a separate piece, but something worth asking yourself is the reverse – is your business like a band? The ability to blast ahead simply because you’re passionate about something is the very foundation of successful entrepeneurship. But do you treat your venture as some brilliant creation, convinced that someday its genius will be discovered, making you millions? Maybe it’s time to see how your business “charts”. If it were a pop song, where would it be on the Billboard Top 100? And if you even said “99″, is that really even close to true, or are you stuck back in the dreamy-eyed “visioning” stage that inspired you at the outset? One acid-test would be to look around yourself right now. Are there a bunch of sycophants surrounding you, trying to get on your good side so they can get a backstage pass into your methods? Were you written up in Fortune this week? Are you reading this as you fly in your private jet to a tropical getaway? In an upcoming piece, we’ll talk about about scheduled assessments are a crucial part of even the smallest, simplest freelance business. We’ll probably have a quick meeting about it first though.