This video is an excerpt from a live training session with Chrissy Scivicque, Career Coach & Corporate Trainer. The full video (“Overcoming an Overwhelming Workload”) is available in the Career Success Library.
The article below summarizes the video content.
So, you have an overwhelming workload, you have too much on your plate, not enough time to handle it all. What are the possibilities? What are your options for dealing with this?
I personally believe that we really only have three options. I think a lot of times when we are facing overwhelm, we believe that there is some secret option out there that we’re not thinking of. And it’s really not true; there’s only three options for what you can do when you’re facing an overwhelming workload. And sometimes when we shrink the possibilities down, it’s easier, because we can look at these three options and then we can say, “Okay, if that’s it, I know which one I need to choose.”
So here are your three options…
If you’re facing an overwhelming workload, option, number one, reduce your workload. So that just simply means finding ways to take the amount of work that you have, and shrink it down in some some capacity.
The second option is to become more efficient with your work. You keep the same amount of work that you have, and you find ways to do it faster, to do it more efficiently, so that you’re actually getting through it quicker, and it’s not taking as much time. It’s not as overwhelming, it’s not as stressful.
And then your third option is to change your mindset.
So these are your three options: You can reduce your workload, you can become more efficient with your work, or you can change your mindset, you can change how you’re thinking about this overwhelming workload that you have. And that’s it. Those are options.
I suppose that somewhere in there, we could come up with another option that says you could leave. If you find yourself perpetually under an overwhelming workload, and you’re completely buried all the time, you’re maxed out on stress and you’re working to the best of your ability already, then you may want to consider finding another position, or finding another job. That would, I believe, kind of fit into the category of “reducing your workload.” That would reduce your workload, inherently.
But ultimately, if you’re in a position where you are fairly happy, you want to stay, you want to make the best of the situation that you’re in, and you have this overwhelming workload, you can: (1) reduce the workload, (2) you can become more efficient with the workload or (3) you can change how you’re thinking about the workload.