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The third time I reached burnout in my career wasn’t due to working excessive hours or not being able to switch off in the evening. It was due to a lack of space in my workday. Work was crammed into every available minute, leaving no time to rest. The result was that, although I logged off every day at 5.00 pm, I burned out due to work exhaustion and stress.
Flexible work practices are becoming more common, facilitated by advances in technology and accelerated by coronavirus pandemic. There are many benefits to flexible work, one of which is increased wellbeing. It allows people to better balance work with rest and personal interests, family, and other obligations. However, it can also lead to unplanned overtime, additional stress and burnout.
I started working with John* in early January to improve his time management. He felt “all over the place” in recent months and wanted to take back control of the workday. Like John, many people feel they are on a productivity rollercoaster. One minute we are progressing steadily towards our goals, and the next we are flipped into a loop-the-loop and sent to the bottom again.
If you are feeling lonely at work, you are not alone. One in five people reported feeling lonely at work on a typical day in the UK, and the most recent EY Belonging Barometer study found that 80% of people globally said they feel or felt lonely at work.
How can you help others have a better workday? I asked the question as part of my research into productivity during COVID-19 and received responses from managers, employees, business owners and consultants working in multiple sectors across the globe. Many commented that this is the first time they had ever thought about how they can help others, and some were surprised at their own response. Consideration, empathy, understanding, patience and kindness came up repeatedly as people thought about those that they worked with. So too did some practical steps that could be taken. Here are the top 5 things you said that you can do to help others have a better workday.
Discover your team’s ‘Hour of Power’
Clarify what is important
Complete your work on time
Share knowledge
Cancel 2 meetings
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?