9 ways how to deal with overwork and stress
Overwork Workload audit Construct a realistic assessment of all the different demands on your time. It might present a daunting reality, but once you have an overview mapped out, it can help clarify what is important, allowing you to plan and prioritize.
Plan and prioritize
Plan and prioritize
If we feel swamped by work demands, it’s often because we don’t have a clear plan of how to meet these demands, and they float around in a whirlwind of anxiety and stress. Work out exactly what your demands are, how you will meet them, and when.
Schedule demands
Schedule demands
It is fine to have a plan, but we need to turn this into action for this to mean anything. The action comes from scheduling, so we can see a clear timeline and commitment regarding what and when we act. Schedule difficult tasks when you have the energy, but also identify ‘quick-wins’ to boost your self-confidence.
Communicate and talk
Communicate and talk
We can feel the weight of demands on our shoulders, and often we might internalize it, accepting this as our lot. But sometimes talking about how this is affecting us can offer positive dividends. Maybe it’s a boss who should know we feel overworked and over stressed or others in our family or college tutors. Explaining the impact on us to others can open the door to sharing the pressures or changing the workload demands.
Perfectionism doesn’t exist
Perfectionism doesn’t exist
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do a job well, but if we believe we need to do so perfectly, we can derive an impossible expectation. We need to challenge the view that just working harder and harder can achieve perfection; self-imposed perfectionism can lead to excessive pressure on ourselves, which in turn is never satisfied and simply perpetuates an unrealistic view of ourselves. Learn to accept that ‘doing your best is much more achievable (and likely) than being perfect.