Are time management skills enough to reduce stress and the feeling of overwhelm? Or is there more to it? Heavy workloads remain the most common cause of stress-related absence at work, according to the CIPD, which begs the question: if workloads continue to increase, will good time management ever be enough?
If you want to perform better at work while also enjoying your life as a whole, then you need to break the cycle of overwhelm. And this means doing more than trying the latest time management fad. (Timeboxing, I’m looking at you).
The Cycle of Overwhelm
We recently analysed the results of our pre-workshop questionnaires to understand better the challenges people face in their workday.
What we found was an unsettling amount of overwhelm. Many respondents discussed experiencing stress and feeling overwhelmed, often due to their workload demands, the need to juggle multiple tasks, and challenges in meeting deadlines.
Respondents told us about the limited time available to complete their work and that stress from work affected their personal lives.
When you are stressed, it’s harder to focus and perform at your best, leading to lower productivity, while the backlog of work seems to get longer and longer.
This cycle of overwhelm can eventually lead to burnout, that’s if you don’t leave your job first. So, how can you break the cycle and regain control of your workday?
Prioritise self-care
If you are feeling overwhelmed, the first thing you need to pay attention to is yourself.
Begin the day before with a night-time routine. It might be reading a few pages of a book before bed, writing down your thoughts about the day, or even meditating. During the day, note how often you take breaks and how you spend them and
If you are managing a team, it’s important to prioritise self-care as a group. The team could take lunch at the same time to encourage everyone to take a break and avoid sending each other emails outside of core hours to respect the right to disconnect.
Write a Handover
There is no time management trick, tip or hack that will solve an unmanageable workload. If you want to break the cycle of overwhelm, the next step you need to take is to write a handover.
46% of managers and 63% of employees overall are considering leaving their jobs due to stress, according to various reports on work-related stress in the past six months.
But you wait until you resign to write your handover document. Writing a handover is also a highly effective way to evaluate your workload and identify things which are no longer needed or could be done by someone else.
If you were handing your responsibilities over to someone new, it’s unlikely that every task, meeting and email thread would make it onto the list. When you take a step back and look at your job from this perspective, you are more likely to identify low-value or no-value work.
Write your handover document and use it to discuss your workload with your manager.
If you are a manager, getting each team member to do this exercise and then discuss it as a group is a great way to recalibrate the roles and responsibilities of the team.
Work to real due dates
Even if the volume of work is manageable, the urgency of tasks can cause unnecessary stress, anxiety and overwhelm.
If you constantly rush to meet challenging or unrealistic deadlines, asking what drives the due date is worth asking. Is there an external event that means you must complete the work by a specific time, or is it someone's preferred date? Worse still, is it a date that was assigned because “everything needs a due date”?
Here are some questions you can ask to identify the actual due date:
- When will it be used?
- What will happen next, and when?
- When is the latest this can be completed?
- What happens if this is not completed on time?
Build your confidence in asking these questions by practising with your team when you assign each other work.
Plan for up to 3 Hours of Deep Work
Pre-pandemic studies suggest that the average knowledge worker does 3 hours of productive work every. Three hours might not seem like a lot, but when you include time for breaks, checking email, meetings, unplanned work, and some social conversation, it all adds to an entire workday.
Instead of wishing to be productive and focused for every minute of the day, plan to make the most of three hours.
The benefit of planning deep work is that you can be more intentional about what you will do during the time rather than seeing what’s next on the list when you have an hour between meetings.
Not everyone can block three hours together; you might need to break it into multiple sessions. But do your best to schedule them for the times of day you are most energised to make the most of these slots.
Teams can support each other by scheduling an “Hour of Power” so they don’t interrupt each other.
Finally, find someone to be accountable to while taking these steps to improve your workday and check in with them regularly. If it doesn’t work on Monday, then try again on Tuesday. If you are feeling overwhelmed at work, the most important thing to do is be kind to yourself, and the rest will follow.
What else can be done?
The steps outlined in this article will work individually and on teams. Still, the pressure will continue to seep down through the organisation until leaders and managers effectively manage workload and expectations with internal and external stakeholders.
HR and leadership can look at scaling these ideas across each level of the company to create a culture that supports high performance and employee well-being.
Here’s what’s next
If you are reading this article because you are overwhelmed, take a break and write your handover document.
If you are a manager, share these ideas with your team at the next meeting and decide what one thing you can do to help each other create a better workday.
Last Updated: 05th February 2024
