Get Organized
Many people experience stress as a response to their innate lack of organization. Deadlines, bills and dinner dates can all be sources of stress if you haven’t planned accordingly. Learn to power through the bad stuff and enjoy the good stuff, and you’ll remove a huge burden from your stressed-out shoulders.

Try these simple tips for getting your stuff together:

Keep track of important dates. Invest in a datebook, day planner or personal digital assistant. Find something fun and kicky, but make sure it works for you. Begin by writing down birthdays, vacations, holidays and anniversaries, and then enter due dates, meetings, appointments and any other pressing matters. Once you’ve downloaded this information from your brain, you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Just remember to check your datebook often!

Make “to do” lists. Using a notebook, blank sheets in your datebook or the “notes” function on your PDA, begin making lists of everything you need to do: laundry, bill paying, presentations, research, gift buying, scheduling … anything and everything that’s been needling your brain. Cross off each item as you do it. This technique is excellent for those troubled by sleeplessness: Instead of lying awake and worrying about what you need to do, get up and write it down. Worries removed, sleep renewed.

Arrive 10 minutes early. Many people experience stress as a response to rushing around at the last minute and arriving late everywhere. Stop it, now. Set every clock in your apartment--including your watch--ahead by ten minutes, and then forget you did so. You’ll find yourself relaxed and easygoing as you stroll into your class, meeting or lunch date a suave 10 minutes early.