Workload: how to cope with the workload
Here are some tips on how to get the most out of your workload.
In an increasingly competitive world, the importance of knowing how to cope with workload is often the importance of knowing how to cope with the workload..
In this article we will see some useful tips to increase our working efficiency and know how to properly manage the workload during the day to day, and also a reflection on the extent to which the solution must always go through individual solutions.
Strategies for managing workload
Follow these guidelines to improve your chances of managing your day-to-day responsibilities in the work context.
1. Get a good night's sleep
It has been proven that simply sleeping less than 6 hours a day for a week and a half causes most people to have the same cognitive and concentration problems as those who have gone two days without sleep. This has clear implications when it comes to work: significantly less performance is achieved..
In addition, too little sleep greatly increases the likelihood of developing excessive anxiety.
2. Set very specific schedules
In most cases, the habit of not keeping schedules or keeping them only "off the top of your head" is the enemy of productivity. The best thing to do is to specify them down to the last detail, to be able to commit to them better..
3. Don't underestimate the power of breaks
Although it may seem paradoxical, in most cases setting a few minutes of rest approximately every hour can make us finish work earlier. The reason is that it allows us to concentrate betterIt also gives us specific moments to rest, which makes it easier to avoid distractions and moments when our mind wanders without realizing it.
4. Adopt assertive communication habits
Sometimes, we lose a lot of time because of misunderstandings. It is important to be very sure that you are doing what is necessary at all times, and this means being direct when it comes to raising any doubts that may arise.
5. If you can, delegate
The point at which we can delegate responsibilities is one of the key moments for any leader working in a company. of any leader working in an organizational environment: relying on the ability of others has its risks, but it is often necessary in order to cope well with the workload.
This in itself is more work, but in the medium and long term, it is appreciated.
6. Do not underestimate the importance of the workspace.
Small details such as fluorescent lights that flicker a lot, uncomfortable chairs or a bad distribution of the tables can make it very uncomfortable to work in the medium term, including problems that sometimes become medical. Therefore, to deal well with the workload, it is important to to design workspaces with ergonomics and work psychology criteria in mind..
The problem of Burnout syndrome
One of the keys to knowing how to manage work overload correctly is knowing how to distinguish between situations in which planning strategies and the adoption of new habits can be the solution, and those cases in which the root of the problem is simply that there is too much work.
Because beyond the motivational phrases and the belief that the only thing necessary to achieve success is effort, there are psychological disorders facilitated by a precarious work situation.In addition to motivational phrases and the belief that the only thing necessary for success is effort, there are psychological disorders that are facilitated by a precarious work situation, which, unfortunately, is very common even in the richest countries.
This is why it is necessary to accept the possibility that some jobs are poorly designed, that some companies can only function on the basis ofSome companies can only function by exploiting workers to the point where they lose their health, and we cannot expect that the decisions we make individually are always the key to completely solving problems that are of a collective nature, and not of a personal nature. So, to know when you have a Burnout Syndrome problem that can only be solved by stopping working so much, consider these aspects of the way you work:
- Does your work produce an almost constant state of anxiety, for several weeks?
- Do you notice that in your work context you often feel fatigue?
- Do problems concentrating lead you to perform much less than you could be performing?
- Do you feel an emotional disconnect from your work?
If the answer to most of these questions is yes, it is likely that you are experiencing work-related fatigue syndrome.If the answer to most of these questions is yes, you are probably experiencing Burnout Syndrome.
If, in addition, you feel the need to sleep little in order to meet your work objectives, you hardly spend time eating well, you work so much that you cannot afford short breaks of even a quarter of an hour and you feel a significant fear of being suddenly assigned too much work, it is worth considering why you should continue working under these conditions, given that adopting healthier habits in terms of performance and organization will not make the job continue to be harmful.
It should not be forgotten that mental health is not disconnected from the material context that surrounds us.If 150-page documents to be filled out in a single afternoon will continue to exist even if we change our behavior, it is the job that must change, not us.
In any case, psychology is relevant in both cases. On the one hand, it helps people to adopt useful strategies to manage their time and become more resilient in the face of anxiety and stress, and on the other hand it proposes models for intervention in the way companies work, from changes in workflow to activities to improve group cohesion and avoid the emergence of problems caused by lack of communication and trust, for example.
Bibliographical references:
- McVay, J.; Kane, M. (2009). Conducting the train of thought: Working memory capacity, goal neglect, and mind wandering in an executive-control task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 35 (1): pp. 196 - 204.
- Ruotsalainen, JH; Verbeek, JH; Mariné, A; Serra, C (7 April 2015). "Preventing occupational stress in healthcare workers". The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (4): CD002892.
- Toker, S.; Melamed, S.; Berliner, S.; Zeltser, D. & Shapira, I. (2012). Burnout and risk of coronary Heart disease: A prospective study of 8838 employees. Psychosomatic Medicine, 74: pp. 840 - 847.
- Vázquez Beléndez, M. (2002). Psicología del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones: Aproximación Histórica. Universidad de Alicante.
(Updated at Apr 12 / 2024)