I attended a Work/Life Balance training today. Lots of interesting food for thought. One of the points the presenter made was about finding a balance between accepting and controlling your workload.
Facets discussed:
- We all work with people, which means our day-to-day workload is going to shift:
- email volume is largely out of our control;
- meetings, phone calls, and personnel mini-crises happen;
- It’s not realistic to check off everything from our daily, or even weekly check-lists;
- Two unhealthy tendencies:
- perfectionism;
- multi-tasking.
- Suggested Solutions:
- Prioritize;
- Organize;
- Breathe, take a break;
- Analyze how you’re spending your time so you can determine how to be more efficient.
My questions:
- At what point do employees need to take some control?
- At what point do employers need to address workload situations?
- What happens when items both “important” and “urgent” get passed to next week’s to-do?
- What happens when this becomes a pattern rather than an anomaly?
- Yes, perfectionism is unrealistic. Where is a reasonable line of standards of excellence?
- How can a person or organization reign in demands without damaging relationships?
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