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Stress is a common side effect of almost any job, but entrepreneurs seem to have it the worst. Causes of stress come from almost anywhere: Taxes, clients, reports, employees, emails, and much more. But what I’ve learned is that stress has a much more profound effect on business operations than most people think. Stress usually has a direct impact on productivity. My own experiences as an entrepreneur helped me realize that when I’m stressed, I’m far less productive. Stress causes me to spin my wheels, and gives me a feeling that every task — even small ones — are much more daunting than they actually are. Part of this is due to the fact that stress often manifests as physical pain, which makes any task unpleasant. Several months ago I became so stressed that I developed very bad back pain, leading me to start going to a chiropractor three times a week. In an effort to reduce my back pain, I also began going to the gym more often, adjusted my monitors to eye-level, bought a giant exercise ball to use instead of my chair, scheduled weekly massage appointments, and even wore a rubber band around my finger to remind me to think about my posture at all times. Not only was all of this expensive and time-consuming; it didn’t provide full relief (though it did help). This made me realize that the only way to fully relieve my pain was to reduce my stress. Over the next several weeks, I learned some important lessons about what was causing my stress and how to minimize it. In this article I’ll discuss specific steps I took to relieve my stress, reduce my pain, and improve my productivity. Unsubscribe from email lists I like to use my email inbox as my main to-do list. Unfortunately, this means that spammy emails that make it past my spam filter get categorized in my brain as to-do items, instantly elevating my stress. One of the first things I did to reduce my stress was to unsubscribe from every email list I don’t care about. It was actually quite interesting; for a week, I woke up every morning, excited to check my email, and see what spam it contained, because that meant I could unsubscribe from more email lists. After about a week of unsubscribing to all the random lists my email address had somehow accumulated over the past several years, my inbox is now much more manageable, clean, and doesn’t get hit with new marketing emails once every few minutes throughout the course of my day. Focus on real people in the real world I remember one Saturday morning I awakened to an otherwise beautiful day which my girlfriend and I had planned to spend together. I casually checked my business email out of habit and saw an email which immediately stressed me out. The entire weekend, at that moment, was ruined, because I couldn’t stop thinking about how to remedy the situation when I supposed to be enjoying time with my girlfriend. Similarly, my girlfriend (also an entrepreneur) and I missed seeing The Hobbit because she checked her email before the start of the movie and had received a very disrespectful email from a problem client (which she has since fired). She was so upset by it that we actually had to leave the theater 25 minutes into the movie because she couldn’t focus on the show. One easy solution is a fantastic plugin called Inbox Pause for Gmail, which literally puts a pause button on your Gmail, preventing new emails from hitting your inbox until you click the “Unpause” button. This makes it easy to resist the urge to check email, especially on your mobile device, helping you separate work and fun. Caulk the cracks We’ve all experienced emails that seem to have fallen into the digital netherworld, never delivered or received. Sometimes, the email is delivered but the recipient fails to take action on it. Unfortunately, these scenarios lead to things falling through the cracks, resulting in missed deadlines and other stress-causers. The solution is simple, though, and it’s called Boomerang for Gmail. This plugin has changed the way I do business, prevented many things from falling through the cracks, eliminated one of my to-do lists, and put my mind at ease. You can set it to ping you if nobody responds to your email after a certain amount of time, allowing you to follow up to ensure things get done. This also eliminates existential overhead, which is the mental cost of feeling like there are many things that need to get done, because it relieves the burden of wondering whether a certain task has been completed yet. Keep an outlet for ideas As entrepreneurs, we’re constantly coming up with ideas for improving our businesses, processes, and strategy. Every once in a while, I have a lightbulb moment in which I really get a gold-nugget idea. If I have nowhere to write it down, then I’m forced to store it in my mental RAM, which accumulates to increase my existential overhead. Keeping my iPhone close lets me jot down ideas in its notepad app, which gives me instant satisfaction that I won’t forget my great ideas. If I’m driving, I use the voice memo app to record my idea verbally. Exercise and diet This sounds clichéd, but it’s so true that I have to include it in this list. Working out at the gym is a huge source of stress relief for me. I’ve found that when I’m working out, my brain is most active; I come up with most of my great ideas on the treadmill, exercise bike, or while lifting weights. For this reason, I’m always sure to keep my iPhone in my pocket so I can write down my ideas as they come to me. But working out isn’t just good for stimulating your brain to come up with great ideas; it keeps you physically and mentally healthy, allowing you to feel great about yourself and recharge your creative energy to apply toward working on your business. A good, healthy diet also helps me think more clearly and quickly, helps me avoid getting sick, makes me more social with my followers, and makes me look forward to getting out of bed and starting work every morning. Don’t worry, be happy Stress is a part of life, and especially part of running a business, but I hope my experiences help you take steps to minimize it. Did these tips help you reduce your stress? Have you found any other tactics that help reduce stress? Let me know in the comments! Jayson DeMers is founder and CEO of AudienceBloom, a Seattle-based SEO agency. You can contact him on LinkedIn or by email. Image credit: Stokkete/Shutterstock Filed under: Entrepreneur

Today’s Funding Daily brings you nothing small. We’ve got a huge new fund for health tech ideas, a massively ambitious plan to turn cars into something from The Jetsons, and a great, big payout from Nasdaq to early Facebook IPO participants. Third Rock Ventures racks up $516M for health tech Third Rock Ventures is a venture capital fund that supports companies working on health IT, science, biotech, and medicine. It’s huge, $516 million Fund III will invest in up to 16 companies with a particular focus on the “going convergence” of diagnostics, therapeutics, information technology, and data. Read the full story on VentureBeat. GroundCntrl grabs $1.3M In a Form D filed with the SEC late last week, we learned about a relatively small round for a new company with a weird name. GroundCntrl is a combination of a software as a service and a mobile app that organizes tasks and employee-incentive programs. It’s specifically aimed at companies with a “mobile workforce,” businesses that have workers spread out and not necessarily in an office. An example could be a canvassing business, such as the environmental folks you see on the sidewalks asking for a moment of your time. Read the full story on VentureBeat. Joyride’s seed investors take a spin Joyride seeks to make your boring commute time more fun with voice-activated mobile applications that provide a safe and social way to spend the driving hours. The startup is launching publicly today after presenting off-the-record at the Founder Den Demo Day last week and announcing $1 million in funding. Read the full story on VentureBeat. Sherpa guides itself to a $1.1M pile of cash Sherpa, iPhone app that promises to simplify your day, raised a $1.1 million round of seeding funding, it announced today. The app uses location-based technology to make your commute, routine, and life easier and is designed to work collaboratively with your smartphone’s calendar and email, automatically pushing information when you need it. Once installed, Sherpa can let you know when to leave for your next meeting, alert you to traffic jams on your daily commute, and automatically pull up your flight information when you arrive at the airport. Read the full story on VentureBeat. Fenwick & West say a good Series A is hard to find Silicon Valley law firm Fenwick & West just released the results of its 2012 Seed Financing Survey today. The study showed that the number of startups obtaining Series A financing after a seed round declined significantly in 2012. Cue the sad trombone sound effect! Read the full story on VentureBeat. Not so much an exit as a $62M payout for Facebook investors The Securities and Exchange Commission gave Nasdaq the green light to pay out up to $62 million to those who lost money after technical glitches held up Facebook’s initial public offering by a half hour. The ordeal cost investors money, and a couple weeks later, Nasdaq submitted its proposed compensation plan to the SEC, though it does claim it is not responsible for losses incurred on the trading floor. Read the full story on VentureBeat. Filed under: Deals

The world economies stand at a crossroads. Industries that once were dominant are long in decline. Spurred by tectonic technological shifts, nascent sectors (think digital, data and everything automated) are ascendant and will likely shape everything that lies ahead, including your career and opportunities. With every career move, I have been positioned in new geographies or industries that were primed for growth. This has taken me around the globe and the digital world. When I’m feeling omniscient, I like to believe that can be chalked up to more than just sheer luck: Perhaps there’s something within that gives me the foresight to anticipate where the future may take us. Back down in reality, I realize that I have simply followed some basic advice that anyone can use to stay ahead of the curve. The following are some simple rules for winning your future: 1. Take risks — big ones In 2001, I was in New York helping advise technology and internet companies on marketing and communications strategy. Some of you may be old enough to recall this thing called the “dot.com crash” that began in the U.S. around that time. I read the writing on the wall and leapt at the chance to run consulting projects in Asia for a global company. Countless reports projected that China (and Asia) were primed to take off as the hot new markets, and I was correct in anticipating that it would take quite a while for any crash-related effects to be felt in the region. Through good decision-making and a stomach for risks (and a varied diet), I gained invaluable experience that continues to pay off. 2. Take all opportunities Wherever in the world I have worked, I rarely shied away from any event, trip, assignment, project or initiative related (even indirectly) to work. This provided incredible experiences, such as leading the regional change-management program for a Fortune 50 company, being seconded to work in the headquarters of one of Korea’s largest conglomerates, and running a country for the world’s largest PR firm. None of these opportunities were actively pursued, and none were gigs I initially thought were an ideal fit. However, when given the chance I considered that there must have been something that made me right for the job. These all helped form the “evolving me” in my career, focused my direction and led to incredible opportunities further down the road. 3. Go where the future is Just because this should be obvious to many doesn’t mean it doesn’t bear repeating: Make a smart bet on a career path and reassess at waypoints. One look at the fastest-growing jobs tells you where the future lies: tech and healthcare. Advancements in digital media, technology and data optimization (something I write about often); life-extension and an aging population; skyrocketing healthcare, infrastructure and resource costs – these all point to a techno-medical future. Like many, I wasn’t always a digital guy and I worked in industries that were fundamentally disrupted. However, through following the very rules described here, I pivoted my early career as a traditional journalist and PR guy and have kept pace with digital transformations. 4. Think Beyond In the digital, tech, media sandbox I play in, everyone loves to talk about the “era” we’re in. Depending on who you ask, we could be in the internet era, the social era or the mobile era. Don’t listen to them anyway. When radio was first popularized, you can imagine that many people thought: “This is the bee’s knees. How wonderful it is to live in the future!” Now, look at the technology you currently use. If you think you’ll still be using anything resembling a desktop computer or an iPhone in 10 years, you’re in for a big surprise. I’m getting ready for the innovations that are beyond the immediately available and doing what I can to be poised for success in a post-internet, post-mobile era. In a world that is constantly innovating, you had better always be innovating in your career plan for the future. Jonathan Gardner is director of communications at Turn, the cloud marketing platform. He has spent his career as an innovator at the nexus of media and technology, having worked in communications and as a journalist. Filed under: Entrepreneur, VentureBeat

Austin, which is known to foster a strong startup environment, has been ranked among the best U.S. cities for women entrepreneurs.

NerdWallet Inc., which runs a financial planning website, ranks Austin seventh on the list. The rankings are based on economies, education levels and the number of existing businesses owned by women.

"With organizations like Austin Women in Technology, businesswomen in Austin will have little trouble finding a supportive and knowledgeable community," NerdWallet wrote.

NerdWallet’s…