Categories: Editorial

Here’s How To tell Your Boss You’re Drowning In Too Much Work


by Jennifer McShane
23rd Jan 2017

If like us, you’ve just crawled out of bed and are already frazzled at the thoughts of your jam-packed working week ahead, we feel you. Some of us feel like tattooing I Need A Break Now on our foreheads. Broaching the topic of the excess workload with your boss can be tricky; it isn’t easy to say; actually, I’m drowning in those six presentations (that should be done by several people, not single-handedly) and I need a break. But, there is a tactful way to solve this dilemma, according to the team at The Science of Us.

They point to an informative?piece published in Harvard Business Review (HBR)?offering a few suggestions, and the first, in which you cut yourself some slack is an important one. Quite often, if we feel we can’t cope with our?workload, we automatically feel like we’ve failed. But?you haven’t failed. You’re human and sometimes, you’re just genuinely overworked and likely need to up your time management skills. Rather than drowning in a sea of emails and panic, tell your manager you need to begin again – burning yourself out to the point of mental and physical exhaustion is never the answer.

Other key advice suggests that rather than presenting a list of complaints as to why you can’t do the work, come up with a draft of solutions to get around the issues and start from there – in other words, the glass-is-half-full approach as you’ll get further attacking the problem in a positive manner. The HBR piece suggests that for each problem, you should come up with three potential solutions, such as: getting another college?to help or that tasks be stretched?out to give you more breathing space.

The three issues above should help you start the process, right after you close this tab and get back to work that is….

See more tips over yonder.

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