How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed at Work

Everyone knows that feeling overwhelmed at your place of work is simply not a productive behavior – nor is it good for your health for that matter. However, fortunately this feeling can be overcome to ensure that you work in a much more efficient and effective manner. In order for you to feel more in control of your day-to-day work, you should take the following advice into serious consideration:

Make a List

First off, you should make a list of all the tasks that you need to complete. While you may shy away from this particular task at first – out of fear that looking at the list of tasks will make you feel more overwhelmed, it is important that you construct this list.

Prioritize Your Tasks

From there, prioritize your tasks based on several factors that can include due dates, how important the project is to your company, and so on. Remember to be realistic about the time it will take you to complete these tasks as you complete your schedule.

Take Action

Next, and most importantly perhaps, you should take action and start to work on the task that you deemed most important. Once you begin working on a task and see some results, you definitely should feel less worried about your workload as you are now seeing concrete results from your efforts.

Remember to Focus

Focus on the task at hand – while you may be tempted to think about all of the tasks that are yet to be completed on your “to do” list, in order to be more productive, you should only focus on the task at hand whenever possible.

Keep Your Boss in the Know

All that said, there are certain situations where all of the organization and focus in the world will not help you to complete all tasks by a specified date. In this type of situation, you should definitely tell your manager about your situation. However, you of course should not notify your manager right before a project is due. Instead, you should inform your manager well ahead of time – in almost all situations, your manager will be understanding and offer you an extension to help you out directly, put more workers on the task, and so on. In any case, not letting your manager know what is going on will only lead to additional issues down the road.

While some people feel more overwhelmed than others at their places of work, there are certain strategies that you can implement to overcome this unproductive state. What about you? Do you often feel overwhelmed at work? What measures do you take?

Larisa Redins is a full time writer and editor with degrees in both Arts and Biological Science. She writes about career issues for FinancialJobBank.com and other topics for a variety of international websites and magazines. Please visit her other blogs at FinancialJobBankBlog.com and view job postings at FinancialJobBank.com.