How to avoid overload and burnout in your job - create and maintain effective boundaries
Krista Powell Edwards Chartered FCIPD
Helping HR to have a positive influence and impact through high performance, confidence and credibility. ?? Coaching ?? Development ?? Facilitation Author of ‘How to get HR heard, Being Credible in HR', out in 2025.
At work are you committed, capable and collaborative? ?If so, be afraid, be very afraid.
One of the reasons delegation gets a bad name is that managers don't delegate properly. Instead of planning and managing what and how they delegate, they take the much quicker option and delegate to a committed and capable member of staff rather than the person who may have a moan or mess up.
It's happened to me. As a safe pair of hands I would regularly get emails from my manager delegating a task to me with very little notice. The manager didn’t consider the other activities I had on my ‘To Do’ list, they didn’t ask, they just assumed I could cope with the extra task.
It's so easy and so tempting for a manager to do this - they get more space in the diary and in their head, a task they don't have to think about. It’s gone, out of sight, out of mind.
Does this happen to you?
If so what can you do about it?
How can you ensure you can manage your workload?
That you're not taking on additional tasks that cause overload, and the risks associated:-
Answer: Create and maintain your boundaries
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Think of the boundaries at your home. ?Effective property boundaries are well defined and robust. It’s clear what’s your land and what’s not.
This is an approach to take with workplace boundaries.
1.?????? Take time to identify where your workplace boundaries are in terms of the key activities and the time they take.
2.?????? Ideally discuss and agree your boundaries with your manager.
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Aim to create effective work place boundaries, which are
1.?????? Clear and well defined
So you and other people know what you do and don't do. The benefits for you are
to make a decision about what to focus on
to avoid distractions
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2.?????? Discussed and agreed.
These are your ‘terms of reference’ that can be referred to by you and others when boundaries are being encroached. This helps you clarify what you do and don’t do, and to say no if required.
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3.?????? Monitored and reviewed
Monitoring enables you and others to see if there's any encroachment. Reviewing enables changes to happen in a thought out way.
The benefits of boundaries
Investing time in identifying and agreeing activity boundaries will have future benefits.
Personal benefits for you include
Team and organisation benefits include
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Identify the benefits of having boundaries to help you and others keep to them.
Boundaries are beneficial.
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It's important to identify the benefits and remind yourself and others of them, because it can be tempting to stray
Leadership and Conflict Resolution Consultant. Risk Management and Reputation Protection.Creator of Change Without Tears programme. Enhanced ACAS accredited workplace mediation. Published Author
6 个月Krista Powell Edwards, MA FCIPD thank you for such an important topic. My direct experience of being misused , overburdened and abused by lazy colleagues was this. I saw a colleague’s inbox which looked bare compared to mine . I asked how this was accomplished. He told me , that unless an email was addressed to him he set up a rule to divert any he was copied in to junk. I was amazed. I asked him how long he had been doing this, he smiled and said “Three years”. Needless to say , he liberated me from the incessant emails sent to me ‘just for information’. In reality, it was decision avoidance by people who wished to involve others in their work. Another lazy colleague would happily forward emails without doing anything required of him. He signed every email ‘Thanks’. I replied by email ‘ No problem’. Unless I was required to do specific actions I did nothing. He was too cowardly to confront me because he knew he was in the wrong.