How to Structure Your Day to Feel Less Stressed

If you don’t control your schedule, your schedule will control you.

Making a prioritized list lets you focus on the important tasks, and allows you to better manage your day. Shutterstock

Even though there is a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, chronic stress still rules the day. Those of us lucky enough to be employed are working harder than ever; an analysis of 3.1 million people’s emails found that lockdown increased the length of the average workday by almost an hour.

Widespread uncertainty makes it hard for us to concentrate. Lack of focus makes everything take longer, and so we work more but accomplish less. Fortunately, there are more effective strategies for coping with anxiety and exhaustion than trying to convince ourselves we know what is coming.