The Psychology of a High Workload

Busy people do more and do it in less time.

What is a high workload?

A high workload is?when the number of responsibilities one has pushes the boundaries of what can realistically be done in a given role. It can be the result of a business trying to trim costs, but it can also come from how work is managed, delegated, or managed by the individual. Poorly managed, an increased workload leads to higher stress levels which can result in burning out.

Why being able to handle more work is good for you.

1.Career

Once you are able to prove you can handle an extra workload, the benefits to your career (and your resume) are boundless. If you were hired at a junior level but are doing the workload (and succeeding) on an intermediate or senior level, there will be a likely chance this will get noticed and you will be promoted to reflect your abilities.

2.Boost to self-confidence

When you become more comfortable with sustaining a high workload your confidence in your abilities increases as does the quality of your work.

3.Your job satisfaction and feeling of being valued substantially improves.

Your feeling, your sense of having achieved something comes to the fore. You increasingly feel that you are a real contributor and both your social and professional capital increase. At the end of each day, you can look back to what you have a achieved.

4.Sense of contributing as a team member

Being in control of your workload gives you more time back. (When your workload is controlled, it allows it to steadily increase as you can do more and more.) thus allowing you to support other team members. Your contributions help create a more effective team.

5.You get more help and guidance when needed.

If you feel you're assigned several assignments with little to no guidance on how to complete them, be sure to ask your manager for help. You should first try to gain as much information as you can on the assignment, you're completing through conducting online research or reviewing similar assignments other team members. If you're still unsure, ask your manager or other team members for assistance. They may have resources, materials, or advice available to help you gain a better understanding of the task.

How to control and increase your Workload

There’s no escaping from it – you must have a Plan.

Planning and time management is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your time between specific tasks. It enables you to work smarter, not harder - so that you get more done in less time, especially when your time is tight, and pressures or stresses are high. Good planning and time management enables you to complete more in a shorter period, makes you more productive and efficient, lowers your stress and anxiety, and helps you procrastinate less and produce a higher quality of work, getting more of your important work done in a day.

Planning techniques to use

1.Create a task (to-do) list.

If you're having trouble organizing, tracking, and prioritizing the many tasks you're assigned, create a Task list.

This stops you from feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work you must do. It stops you from missing deadlines or forgetting something important. A Task list is a prioritized list of all the tasks you need to carry out, it lists everything you have to do, with the most critical tasks at the top and the least important at the bottom. This means all your tasks are written down in one place, so you don't forget anything.?

It is best to use a pen and paper for your Task list -it’s easier and faster to do and maintain. Writing down your task list items helps you remember what tasks you need to finish and allows you to sort your responsibilities in order of importance. List the deadline for each task as well. After you complete certain tasks, you can place a checkmark next to each one or cross them out to give yourself a sense of accomplishment and motivation to cross out the next task.

The act of writing as against typing engages more of your cognitive abilities allowing you to analyse better as you write and arrive at better decisions. Several studies have proven this conclusively.

A Task list is essential if you're going to control your workload; using a task list effectively, you'll be much better organized and more reliable, and you will experience less stress. Prioritizing means spending your time on high-value or the most critical tasks first; helping you to meet your deadlines making you more productive and a better team member.

As you organize your Task list, prioritization is critical for successful time management at work. Start by eliminating tasks that you shouldn't be performing in the first place. Then identify the three or four most important tasks and do those first—that way, you make sure you finish the essentials. Evaluate your Task list and make sure you have organized it based on the importance of a task rather than its urgency. Important responsibilities support the achievement of your goals, whereas urgent responsibilities require immediate attention and are associated with the achievement of someone else's goals. We tend to let the urgent dominate when we should focus on activities that support our own business goals.

Not everything is a priority, although it can often feel that it is in the moment when everything is so time-consuming. One tool you can use to maximize your productivity and focus on your biggest priorities is the Eisenhower Matrix. This strategic tool for taking action on the things that matter most is simple. You separate your actions based on four possibilities:

1.???? Urgent and important (tasks you will do immediately).

2.???? Important, but not urgent (tasks you will schedule to do later).

3.???? Urgent, but not important (tasks you will delegate to someone else).

4.???? Neither urgent nor important (tasks that you will eliminate).

Task lists can help you get and stay on top of important projects and piles of tasks or decisions. When working on a project, there are many tasks to do and many people to do them - staying on top of this can seem daunting.

For a project, structure your list by team member, writing out tasks and deadlines for every person on the project. As you write out your tasks, check your team task list to see what's due that day.?Task lists are for when you have a small number of tasks (say 10- 20) that you need to complete. When you have more extensive Task lists, you need to move to a task scheduling App like MS Project, designed to manage larger and more complex Task lists and projects.

How to do it

1.???? A way to ensure you meet obligations is to start by creating a Schedule for yourself. The best way is to use the Calendar on your computer or purchasing a planner and inserting all your meetings and other events into it. From there, you can input these items on to your Task list.

2.???? Write down all the tasks that you need to complete. Break down larger tasks into smaller steps or sub-tasks. (Ideally, these should take no longer than 1-2 hours to complete each.)

3.???? Run through all the tasks and allocate a priority. (Use High, Medium, and Low or Mandatory, Highly Desirable, Nice to have) based on when the task is due.

4.???? If too many tasks have a high priority, run through the list again and demote the less important ones. Once you have done this, rewrite the list in priority order again.

5.???? Always spend 30 minutes at the end of the day organizing tasks on your list for the next day.

6.???? Don't start your day without a Task list. Putting everything on paper will prevent you from lying awake at night tossing and turning over the tasks running through your head. Instead, your subconscious goes to work on your plans while you are asleep, which means you can wake up in the morning with new insights for the workday. If you can't do it the day before, make sure you write out your task list first thing in the morning. You'll find that the time you spend creating a Task list (a clear plan) is nothing compared to the time you'll lose jumping between tasks when you lack such a plan.?

2.Create a team master plan and stick to it

A major mistake ordinary teams make is lack of team level planning, high-performance teams on the other hand build a macro view of all of the team’s work (this also supports their mutual accountability). High-performance teams do not rely on individual team member plans as these do not take resource sharing into account meaning that resource allocations and utilisation are often over or underutilised leading to poor delivery performance. Team member plans also promote team member success over the whole of the team’s success. Relying on team member level planning is also wholly inefficient when multiple teams are involved (such as in Engineering and IT) as intra team communication, process integration and handoffs are often informal or at best poorly defined.

In most teams, it is common practice for team members to plan out their activities, usually by way of a task list with prioritised tasks. Best practice is to review this list daily, adding, deleting, finishing, and commenting on the tasks. Some people because of the way they plan or because of projects use scheduling software like MS-Project which allows a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to be used (Phases, Activities and Tasks). This method of planning provides for detailed plans, tracking, resource allocation and utilisation and better execution, meaning more tasks are delivered on time. Team members that manage their own teams usually find this method best for controlling their teams work as it is an easy way to see and manage all of the teams’ work.

The same approach needs to apply to the team’s work. Every team needs a Team Master Plan of the entire teams’ work activities and tasks, that is all work being undertaken by all team members expressed in one place. Every team needs to plan out its activities, to know what its priorities are and how its resources can best be used. Scheduling software is perfect for this as it is designed to handle different types of work by different owners.

A Team Master Plan is simply a high-level Project Schedule in the form of a Gantt Chart. It needs to show just enough information about the whole teams work activities to allow for the planning, prioritising, and monitoring of all work. The team should regularly (weekly) review the Team Master Plan, reviewing priorities, resource allocations, ownership, due dates, and deliverables. A best practice Team Master Plan has for example a WBS consisting of a top-level of Project Names, Business Units or Departments with the next level of detail being Activities which lists Deliverables and Scare Resources against them. Tasks (the lowest, most detailed level of a WBS) are not shown on the Team Master Plan, these are only shown on detailed team member plans, managed by each team member or their team.

How to do it

1.???? Use a Scheduling package like MS-Project or a spreadsheet to produce a master plan Gantt Chart. Have each team member audit all of their work that is currently underway and that is planned for the next month and enter it onto the master plan. Critical information to capture is:

o?? Work Type (e.g.: Project names, Activity names)

o?? Priority (1,2 or 3)

o?? Owner’s name, Due Date and Deliverables.

2.???? Group similar tasks together.

o?? Save yourself time and mental energy by completing all of one type of task before moving on to the next. For example, create separate chunks of time for answering emails, making phone calls, filing, and so on. Don't answer emails and messages as they come in, as doing so is a distraction - which is an inefficient use of time. Turn off your phone and email notifications to eliminate the temptation to check at unappointed times.

3.???? Ensure that.

o?? All work activities are present.

o?? Priorities are agreed.

o?? Due Dates can be met.

o?? Enough scarce and regular resources are available to meet the due dates.

o?? You hold a weekly review session.

o?? You update the plan.

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