We’ve all been there: never-ending tasks, meetings scheduled back to back and you never quite feel like there is enough time in the day to get everything done. A stressful workweek is a common occurrence for all professionals, especially in real estate.

Having the right strategies to help reduce stress during a busy week is essential to staying on track and achieving all the goals you’ve set. From deep breathing exercises to mindful goal setting, here are a few ways to help stave off the stress and anxiety monsters that creep up on you at all the wrong times.

Mindfulness
Whether you call it meditation or deep breathing exercises, practicing mindfulness is a great way to cope with bouts of stress that a busy work week can bring. Finding a moment in your day to unplug and practice mindful breathing or to use an app that helps with meditation can help center yourself and reset if things start getting overwhelming.

Exercise
The benefits of getting merely 20 minutes of exercise a day are too long to list, but the bottom line is: make time for it. Breaking a sweat is a great way to start or end your long workday and relieve the tension you may be carrying from your busy schedule.

It can be before or after work; a slow jog, doing yoga or hitting the gym are a few of the ways that you can burn some energy and improve your sleep that night.

Sleep/Rest
Work can get pretty hectic. Forgoing sleep may seem like the best way to get ahead of things, but it can also be a massive source of stress. According to the American Psychological Association, adults typically get an hour less than the recommended amount. Simultaneously, 42% of adults report that their sleep quality is fair or poor, and 43% say that stress has caused them to lie awake at night in the past month.

Prioritizing sleep and working on getting more restful sleep are a couple of things that are critical to performing your best at work.

Goal Setting
We set goals all the time, but a helpful way to manage and reduce the stress of a workweek is to set definable, minimal and achievable goals each day. Accomplishing smaller goals throughout your day can help stave off anxiety and panic and provide a nice mood boost at the end of the week when you tally all you achieved.

Grab a planner, set up a file or spreadsheet, or just keep a special notepad where you can write out all your goals and cross them off

Make a ‘Done’ List
Have you ever made a to-do list? Well, this is a list of all your tasks that you got done during the week. As you get through your daily list of goals, don’t toss out the paper or file you used.

Instead, save it and glance at it before the weekend to remind yourself of all the things you got done.

Jordan Grice is RISMedia’s associate content editor. Email him your real estate news ideas at jgrice@rismedia.com.