Don’t get crushed by your increasing workload

Some 58 per cent of Brits believe the office has cursed them with an increasing workload – a fifth even used the word “significantly” to stress their thoughts.

This is according to Wrike, which exclaimed: “By far the biggest perceived contributor to the increasing workload trend is that staffing does not match the amount of work coming in. Companies are either not hiring more staff to cover additional work coming in, or have had to cut down on workforce. Handling increased responsibilities was the third most frequent cause, likely due to the existing staff having to pick up the slack.”

The knock-on effect of increasing workloads, the company said, was that 47 per cent UK employees took far longer to complete jobs than a year ago.

While a third of managers confirmed they expected workers to put in extra time and take fewer breaks to tick off their growing task lists, it didn’t exclude them from the ever increasing workload.

But don’t worry, there are several ways you can attempt lessening the strain – for both yourself and your staff.

(1) Practice how to avoid tasks

Michael Hyatt, author of “Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World”, suggested the busy CEO learn how to wield the power of what he called intentional negligence: “Many people practice unintentional neglect. They forget to do something or they are late in meeting their deadlines. They don’t like this behaviour and neither do those who are counting on them. But this inevitably happens if you don’t practice intentional neglect. You must decide in advance you will not do category D tasks. They are neither urgent nor important. They are simply not worthy of your time or attention.”

(2) Try practicing the arch-nemises of the increasing workload: procrastination

This may slightly come hand-in-hand with the prior tip on negligence. Credit Karma’s founder and CEO, Ken Lin, said: “As you work through your daily checklist, you can learn a lot from what gets punted. If you keep missing a deadline, it’s a sign that you need to reassess something. You either hate doing it, which means that it’s worthwhile considering whether someone else should be doing it – or it’s not as important to you, or the company, as you imagined. Procrastination is a habit that we all fight against, but that instinct to delay can teach you a lot about where your priorities really lie.”

(3) As hard as it may be, why don’t you try avoiding perfectionism?

Doug and Polly White, who own Whitestone Partners, have explained that doing everything to utmost glimmering perfection can take its toll – so stop it. “We’re not suggesting that mediocrity is acceptable,” they said. “However, continuing to work on something long after the incremental effort stopped delivering value is not beneficial. Further, it sucks up your time, keeping you from doing other tasks that do create value. Keep in mind, great work is what we do for our customers. Perfectionism is what we do for ourselves.”

Continue to find out what you can do for staff.

Image: Shutterstock

By Shané Schutte

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