Five tips for managing stress and time at a startup

Appropriate management of stressors is key for meeting personal and professional goals

Recently, I’ve been speaking with team members at FiscalNote about stress and time — brainstorming some ways in which we can all get better managing these constraints. Stress, for better or worse, is only natural at a young, growing company.

When joining a startup, employees often take on the responsibility of ten people at a larger organization, but often are not prepared when the full weight of that responsibility hits.

Throughout these conversations I’ve found a few themes regarding stress and time management in the workplace that have helped employees regain frame of mind. After all, managed stress can become useful and healthy in challenging ourselves to improve and stay on our toes. This process helps team members frame their stress and gain a greater focus for prioritization.

1. Always keep the big picture in mind

FiscalNote’s mission of unlocking open data and making it useful for customers around the world is both incredibly exciting and demanding at the same time. Today, FiscalNote’s products are the first line of defense and analysis against government action impacting billions in revenues and millions of workers.

It is with that heavy responsibility we need to think critically and reflect on how to better spend our time every day. Keeping a big picture in back of mind gives us all a sense of purpose for our day-to-day functions.

2. Stop and reflect.

Take 15 minutes to reflect every single day and carve out time every week to do a time analysis. Make it a habit to shut off your phone, close your laptop, and quietly think about your interactions and skills for the day. Think about your goals for the day, your relationships with others, and how you as a person can get better.

Did you get everything you wanted to do today done? Do you feel like you added value to people around you and who rely on you? Were there any challenging interactions with people today? Did you do enough to manage your mood and health today?

This will help you channel the stressful interactions and challenges into valuable learning opportunities every single day and help you understand your stressors as a person better. Read this article to get more in depth on this framework.

3. Focus on your high leverage activities.

In one’s day-to-day functions, we often run from meeting to meeting or from task to task without thinking about whether or not we’re spending our time effectively. We burn ourselves out doing tasks that don’t necessarily contribute the most to the mission. Carving out some time for reflection (above) helps one’s self to think critically about how we’re spending our time and focus on the things that really matter. The objectives with the greatest impact — the highest leverage — will get the most meaningful items off your to-do list.

4. If you need a break, take it.

At FiscalNote, we started offering $500 for people who took five consecutive days off for vacation. We felt that the relentless and overachieving team members we have at FiscalNote sometimes needed a real push to go out and get the rest they needed. All of us work hard, but there are times when we know we need to take a break so we can come back refreshed.

Staff should keep a clear line of communication with their manager and let them know how they feel; likewise, managers should monitor their team’s stress. A staff should be ready to support the family as best they can; it takes a village to create an awesome place to work.

5. Keep a positive attitude.

This may sound wishy-washy, but keeping a positive attitude every day and bringing your A-game really does make a difference. If you’re confident and positive in yourself and challenge yourself to do more, you will be able to channel the stress into valuable opportunities. Keeping the environment fun and lighthearted throughout the day will have an impact across the company.

FiscalNote is a challenging environment because the problems we are solving are not easy. Things that are valuable to society — things that really move the needle — are not supposed to come easily. Not everyone can handle the pressure and responsibility of being one of the first employees at a fast-growing startup.

This means that sometimes you work late into the night; this means that sometimes you clock hours during the weekend to ship a feature or close that final deal. We do it because we are all driven to succeed.

Those with this drive should be careful to understand our limits, focus on the things that matter, and self-regulate our need to integrate our work into our lives. Building a company is not a sprint, it’s a marathon — it may take years for a company to see its payoffs, but it will be worth it in the end. To reach that finish line, we must get there together — with our spirits and our sanity in good condition.