Hasta La Ideas

Earlier this month, the article “Stress and productivity: friends or enemies?” on the site HR Management caught my attention. In it, writer Matt Buttell defines productivity as the equation:

Productivity = outputs / inputs (within a time period, quality considered)

He then goes on to claim that stress — both rational and misplaced — impacts the inputs variable in the equation. Stress can help you to be motivated and creative (Only two more hours to get this done, let’s get working!), but it also can make you freak out about small, irrelevant factors in your work (Who keeps putting the hole punch away? Can’t you see I’m using it!).

Buttell goes on to quote a 1999 study by Robert Ostermann, professor of psychology at FDUU’s Teaneck-Hackensack Campus, on the link between stress and productivity:

No one reaches peak performance without being stressed, whether an athlete, an office worker or a manager.

Looking at your average day, how do you manage stress to let it work to your advantage? How do you use stress to influence your inputs variable?