It’s a new year but the same old story: You have more things to do than you have time to do them. Whether it’s too many tasks and meetings at the office or personal commitments that have ballooned beyond your capacity to manage them (or both), it’s easy to launch into January feeling overwhelmed before you’re even a few weeks into the fresh calendar.
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The question is, what can you do to reclaim a feeling of peace without falling behind in things you have to do, and want to do? Is it better to keep pushing ahead full speed, or should you take your foot off the gas and slow down a bit this year to attempt to increase your well-being?
While there are no easy answers, one thing is certain: Constant pressure and stress can quickly lead to burnout and lack of engagement in your work, as well as your life in general. At the same time, if you step back your hustle too much or too quickly, it could lead to serious career consequences like dropping your performance or falling behind on deadlines.
Here are some ideas on how to determine whether going harder or going home is the best approach at any given moment:
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Are you getting sloppy with details? One of the first things to go when you’re taking on too much is your attention to detail. When you’re drinking out of the fire hose, it’s impossible to control where all of the water ends up spraying, so to speak. If you’re rushing from meeting to meeting all day, for example, it’s not realistic to think that you’ll also be able to write and proofread a report that’s due at 5 p.m. to ensure accuracy. If you notice that important details are starting to slip through the cracks or that you can’t keep track of everything you’ve committed to deliver, then talk to your boss about whether you can delegate some assignments, cut back on your meeting schedule or otherwise remove some items from your plate.
Are your thoughts turning negative? One of the hallmarks of career success is the ability to maintain a positive attitude amid challenges. But even if you are the type of person who usually sees the glass half full, it’s easy to slip into toxic thinking when you’re overwhelmed and stressed out. If repetitive worried and anxious thoughts are flooding your mind as you desperately try to tackle too many to-do tasks, then it’s a red flag that something about your workload or approach to it needs to change. While not everything about what you’re expected to do for your supervisor and team is within your control, you can control speaking up when you feel like you have more on your plate than you can reasonably handle. When you talk to your boss, be prepared to offer solutions rather than just pointing out the problems.
Does everything feel equally urgent and important? Effective time management involves being able to distinguish between tasks that need to be completed right away, and those that can be put on the back burner as less pressing. But in periods when there’s simply too much to do, the priority ranking can start to blur on your long list of requested deliverables. Before deciding that you need to jettison some items from the queue, first step back and see if you can distinguish between what needs to happen urgently and what can wait a while. Not every item on a running to-do list has to get done today or even tomorrow. If you are able to segment your tasks into those that are most important to handle today and those that might not need to be done for another week or even month, then you might not need to slow down at all. In fact, by properly calendaring these less urgent projects and saving them for later, you may find that you can push harder on the things that truly need to happen now.
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Since it’s not realistic to expect that pressures in your work life will let up anytime soon, it’s critical to set your own pace for achieving goals and accomplishing tasks. Sometimes, simply taking the time to determine your priorities can help ease pressure. So don’t wait for warning signs of burnout to force you to slow down — by taking intentional steps each January, you can chart a smoother path with less stress through the entire year.
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Should You Slow Down Your Workload This Year? originally appeared on usnews.com
