Relieve stress, gain ideas in 40 minutes.

If you're like me (and most of the work force today, really) you're wearing a lot more hats at work these days. Seems everyone's taken on extra responsibilities so their companies can do more with less. In addition to my "normal" duties as a partner, writer, producer, executive creative director and department head, I've added social media director duties. This includes leading the team on developing social media plans and ideas for our clients and our own company, running this blog, our Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, podcasts, eNewsletter and a whole host of other things. This is not to say, "poor me." I'm sure you have a lot of extra things you're doing that you didn't do two or three years ago, too.

Whether you realize it or not, having more to do in your limited time builds up a layer of stress over you like plaque on teeth. You don't notice it until there's already a lot there. Today, I forced myself to go outside and take a brisk 40 minute walk at lunch. It's a beautiful, if somewhat cold, day in Detroit. And somehow the random play on my iPod knew just the right songs to play for a sunny day walk in November.

I always hate to take the time away, because I always have so much to do. Even if it's just catching up on online articles I plan to tweet during my lunch hour. But, the break was well worth it. Not only did I come back refreshed and with more energy to face the afternoon, I came back with a lot of ideas. Allowed to float along on song and sunshine, my mind pried loose all sorts of fresh nuggets from the crevasses of my brain. I came up with 6 blog ideas, a new system for tracking our social media programs and several ideas for client creative projects we're working on. And with my Blackberry's voice recorder I made sure I didn't lose any of them.

So, take some time off during the middle of your day. You may be surprised by how much you get done.

Mike McClure, man of many hats