This content originally appeared on Telerik Blogs and was authored by Suzanne Scacca
Struggling to quiet the chaos around you? These four strategies might help you navigate the turmoil arising inside and outside of your workspace.
Turmoil and chaos can come from anywhere.
There could be external factors that disrupt the entire world, like lockdowns, recessions and tariffs. There could be factors that impact your work or industry specifically, like the introduction of GDPR, the rise of AI or Google’s cookie deprecation announcement. Then there’s internal chaos caused by layoffs or reorganizations, public backlash against your brand and even problematic clients.
How are you expected to thrive, let alone focus, in the midst of such chaos?
If it feels like you’re constantly stressed and struggling to bring order to your workday, this post is for you. We’ll look at some strategies you can use to proactively and actively deal with chaos, regardless of where it comes from.
Strategies for Navigating Turmoil While You Work
None of us can predict the future. Which means chaos and turmoil are just a natural part of being human.
That said, chaos can bring some not so positive outcomes if you get wrapped up in it. If you need help navigating the chaos within or outside your workplace, here are some strategies to help you adapt and overcome it.
1. Come Up with an Action Plan
According to Merriam-Webster, chaos is:
“a state of utter confusion”
Or:
“a confused mass or mixture”
Let’s assume your workspace isn’t burning down and that the chaos you’re experiencing (internally or externally) is manageable. Then that’s exactly what you need to do. Manage it.
To be clear: You don’t need to solve the problem yourself in order to make the chaos or the effects of it go away. In some cases, that’s not even feasible. But let’s use an example.
Your team consists of web designers, web developers, marketers and a project manager. The project manager just up and quit last night. Your team relies on this person to keep the flow of projects moving smoothly and monitors each task and stakeholder to along the way.
You could ask a project manager from another team to step in, but that doesn’t seem fair. They’re already stretched thin with their own projects. So, what do you do?
It’s OK to feel stressed. However, you and your team need to find a way to pull everything together until someone steps into the project manager role and takes hold of the reins.
Working together to come up with an action plan is your best course of action. Here is what it might look like:
- Contact management about the project manager’s departure and ask for a plan and timeline for hiring a replacement.
- Schedule a 60-minute team meeting for this morning. Put together an agenda for the call.
- Delegate the project manager’s tasks to various team members based on everyone’s capacity. Try to distribute the tasks fairly.
- Get access to the project manager’s accounts (task management tools, email, etc.) and review what’s in there, verifying nothing urgent is waiting on a response.
- Review where each project stands. With the staffing shakeup and additional responsibilities on each person’s plate, adjust the timelines as needed.
Make sure to put your action plan into writing and to formalize it within your workflows and project management tools. Anything that was previously assigned to the project manager will now need to go to the team member in charge of that duty. This will keep everyone’s duties straight and hold people accountable to their share of the work.
By sharing the load with others and coming up with a clear-cut plan, your team will be able to adapt until a better solution comes along. This will prevent people from freezing up, freaking out and throwing your entire organization out of whack.
2. Focus on What You Can Control
Our bodies are hard-wired to respond to danger and chaos, which can make it difficult to sit still or stay calm. But that’s exactly what you need to do in order to get through the situation.
One technique you can use to stay clear-headed is to focus only on that which you can control.
For example, let’s say that a new international regulation like GDPR or the AI Act has been announced. Or maybe something is changing with SEO, like the Google Page Experience update.
In my personal experience, I remember clients panicking over GDPR.
What is it?
Is it only for the EU?
How will it affect my business?
Does this mean I can’t track data anymore?
What if I don’t know how to add a consent banner to my site?
What happens if I miss something and I’m not compliant?
The first thing you can do in these situations is to educate yourself. If you don’t understand what has changed or how the disruption affects your operations, you’re either going to freeze up and take no action or panic endlessly, worrying about every possible worst case scenario. Neither of which is good.
When you have a good grasp of what’s happening, focus on what you have control over. To worry about anything else will only exacerbate your stress and make it difficult to get your work done.
So, let’s say there’s something like GDPR that’s about to go into effect. What should you focus on?
Start by auditing your own website’s data tracking procedures.
- Identify the methods of data collection and the areas of the site where the data is picked up from.
- Review your privacy policy to verify it is transparent about how the data is collected and how it’s used.
- Add tasks to your list to create a cookie consent popup notice and to enable opt-in/opt-out settings for your users.
- Revise your internal data collection and management processes as needed.
Once you’ve got a handle on how to deal with the chaos internally, turn your focus outward. Reach out to clients, informing them about the upcoming changes. Provide a recommended course of action along with a price for this data privacy audit/setup service. Then wait for them to respond (if they choose to). That’s all you can do.
Another thing I would suggest is to spend your time wisely. Let’s say the chaos doesn’t have a direct impact on you. At least, not yet. Take the U.S. tariffs, for example. There’s not a whole lot you can do until you see if they have an impact on your business’s operations.
If you find yourself stressing about this possibility, spend your time instead on making things better behind the scenes. Identify obstacles and inefficiencies in your workflows. Come up with ways to streamline things, like unifying your software, implementing AI automation and creating templates.
Even if the chaos doesn’t have a direct impact, it will have motivated you to focus on what you can control and, regardless of what happens, improve your situation.
3. Know and Avoid Your Stressors
Navigating stressors and triggers while you’re working can be tricky depending on what they are. For instance, let’s say you have a coworker or manager who’s always wreaking havoc when things are coming down to the wire. So, everyone usually has to stay late to scramble and get the job done. In that case, it’s not like you can just avoid that person.
However, as I mentioned earlier, chaos doesn’t always come from inside of one’s organization. Let’s say it’s something bigger that’s happening around the world.
The second someone mentions it or you catch a glimpse of it on social media or your favorite news site, it gets you spiraling. You can’t stop talking about it with coworkers or you start endlessly doom-scrolling online. Suddenly, an hour or two passes and you’re behind on work.
It can be tough when you encounter something that triggers this kind of stress-induced response. But you’ll need to become more aware of it when and even before it happens.
To do this, think back to other times you’ve felt triggered in a similar way. What caused you to go into distraction or obsession mode? And what pulled you out of it and back into a more productive and healthy frame of mind?
Start with the causes. What sorts of turmoil and chaos really gets under your skin? Where have you encountered it in the office or online? When possible, remove those sources of stress from your routine. For instance, if TikTok reels have sent you spiraling before, use a distraction-blocking app to prevent you from visiting TikTok during the day.
Next, look at the ways you’ve disrupted those patterns before. Did you step away from a conversation and go for a walk outside? Did you set a timer that pulled you back to your desk and work? Was there something else that helped?
Lean into your strengths and away from your disruptors. This will help you bring some order out of the chaos and the stress that it brings.
4. Release the Negativity from Your Body
Chaos can create a lot of tension within ourselves. Holding onto that tension and discomfort will only prolong the effects that the chaos has on you (even after it’s passed).
Here are some small things you can do to relieve the negative feelings getting stored up in your body and to reset yourself during these chaotic times:
Smile.
I don’t mean this in the condescending “Why don’t you just smile?” way. I mean this in the scientific way.
Neurologist Dr. Isha Gupta says that smiling creates a chemical reaction in our brains. Feel-good hormones like dopamine and serotonin are released in the process.
“Dopamine increases our feelings of happiness. Serotonin release is associated with reduced stress. Low levels of serotonin are associated with depression and aggression. Low levels of dopamine are also associated with depression.”
In customer service, I was always taught that if you force a smile on your face while speaking (even when you’re on the phone), it can change how you feel at that moment. Anecdotally speaking, it works. And Dr. Gupta explains why in the quote above.
Reframe your thoughts.
If you find yourself having more and more negative thoughts, try to catch yourself while you’re doing it. For instance:
“Everyone sucks.”
Yep, we’ve all been there before. You’re feeling overwhelmed and burned out, and there seems to be no end to the chaos or drama. In the moment, it really can feel like you’re all alone and everyone does suck.
But here’s the thing: Reframing negative thoughts works similarly to putting a smile on your face. By removing negative thought patterns, you can stop the endless cycle of negative emotions from weighing on you.
So, when you catch yourself thinking something like the above statement, change it to something more empathetic like:
“We’re all struggling right now. But we’re going to get through this.”
Even rewording negative statements like “I can’t” into positive ones forces you to shift your emotional state and way of thinking to a more productive one.
This doesn’t mean you need to say “yes” to everything thrown your way. It just means finding a healthier way of framing your response like, “I would like to help with the website audit. However, I have this load test that Client A has been waiting on for 3 days.”
Collaborate and connect.
One of the problems with chaos is that it can throw everything and everyone out of order. It can even force wedges between people. That wedge between you and others doesn’t need to be long-lived though.
So, let’s say word has spread that layoffs are coming. This is not the time to isolate yourself from others, be they your coworkers or your loved ones.
Chaos doesn’t just affect your life, it often affects everyone around you. So, when you find yourself in a tumultuous state, reach out and connect with others. Even if it’s to send an email to a remote coworker to see how they’re doing or to discuss something positive from your lives to take the focus off of what is coming down the line.
Move your body.
During a chaotic time, it’s common to find your body has tensed up. It’s part of our natural responses as humans.
According to this article from Healthline:
“When you experience a stressful event or a bout of anxiety, your muscles contract, sometimes forcefully. This is an automatic or reflex reaction. It’s known as a stress response or ‘fight or flight’ response. It’s your body’s way of gearing up to face a perceived physical threat that you’ll need to fight off or run away from.”
The problem is, you’re not in danger of becoming food for a lion or bear like our long-ago ancestors were (at least I hope not). Yet, your body still responds as if it is. So, you need a way to release that tension so it doesn’t stay with you.
How you move your body is a personal choice. Some people walk out their tension. Others do yoga or pilates. And some hit the gym. Even some light stretching and shaking out your hands and shoulders can be helpful, especially if you don’t have time to immediately address how you feel.
Wrapping Up
Chaos isn’t fun. From the rapid onset to the unpredictability of it all, it can feel almost impossible to get a hold on things while it’s happening.
If you don’t deal with chaos (or, at least, your response to it) the right way, it can lead to feelings of hopelessness and depression. Inevitably, this will lead to burnout.
The good news is that you can adapt to chaotic circumstances. By navigating around the chaos, you won’t get swept up or feel as though you’re drowning in it. And once it passes, you may even come out the other side with a new set of skills and adaptations that build your resilience for whatever the future holds.
This content originally appeared on Telerik Blogs and was authored by Suzanne Scacca
Suzanne Scacca | Sciencx (2025-07-11T15:04:50+00:00) Navigating Turmoil and Chaos at Work Like a Pro. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/07/11/navigating-turmoil-and-chaos-at-work-like-a-pro/
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