4 Ways to Deal With Work Overload

4 Ways to Deal With Work Overload 4 Ways to Deal With Work Overload At  a time when work-life balance is all the rage, many unfortunate workers are still locked in  depressing, overburdened grinds. The average work week today is 47 hours, and 21 percent of Americans work between 50 and 59 hours a week. A further 18 percent of Americans work 60+ hours a week. As if that werent bad enough, increasing numbers of workers are not taking their paid time off  â€" precisely because they are so  overloaded at work that they fear the crushing pileup that will ensue when they return. And so, overloaded workers dont get any rest because they are too overloaded to rest, which means, of course, that they continue being overloaded. The good news, however, is that this cycle can be broken. To do so, youll need to adopt a smart strategy. Here are four tips to help you: 1.  Stop Wasting Time Sorry, theres no way to sugar coat this.  Studies show that 89 percent of workers waste time at work every day, and you might be surprised by how much time theyre wasting: 61 percent of workers waste  around 30 minutes a day, which adds up to  2.5 hours a week. A small percentage of workers  waste  up to half a day. Chief among the time-wasting activities were non-work-related Google searches, Facebook use, and Twitter use. So, if you cut these activities out of your workday, you might begin to feel your burden lighten. Heck, you may even find you werent as overloaded as you thought you were. 2. Cut Out Unnecessary  Meetings This is a big one. Multiple surveys  suggest that 25-50 percent of the time executives spend in meetings is wasted time. One study  even suggests  that people could be spending as much as 1.5 days of a their five-day work  weeks in unproductive meetings. If you lead and organize meetings, consider doing everything you can to shorten those meetings. Get to the point, stick to the agenda, and dont hesitate to cancel meetings that seem unnecessary. If youre but a humble employee with no power over meetings, consider trying to say No to unnecessary meetings more often. One way to do this is to set yourself a weekly or monthly budget of hours you can spend on meetings. Then, you can prioritize and attend only the most important, relevant, and productive meetings. You might worry about selling your superiors on this idea, but if you give them a commercial rationale for your budget â€" i.e., that youd rather spend time on things that push the company forward â€" youll have a better chance at getting your managers on board. Of course, youll want to negotiate this with caution and tact â€" especially if your managers are the ones running the meetings! 3. Take a Break Research says  that more than a quarter of American workers dont take any breaks at work aside from their lunch breaks. You may think this gives you more time to get work done during the day, but its actually counterproductive: If you dont take regular breaks, youll become more tired, which will lead to more mistakes and reduced efficiency, which means youll need to work longer to do the same amount of work. Its a vicious cycle. Research shows that taking a break can increase productivity, refocus your attention, solidify memories, and boost creativity. So, if you want to  avoid long, unproductive days, then stop grinding it our at your desk with no breaks. Try to take at least a 10-15 minute break each morning and each afternoon. 4. Learn to Say No The easiest  way to get overloaded at work is  to take on too many tasks. You may find it hard to say No when a colleague or supervisor asks you to do something, but honestly, sometimes you need to say it. However, you dont want to appear aggressive  when you decline to do something â€"  just assertive. Explain that you currently have too much on your plate, and that there is simply no time for this new task. If you want to do the task, make it clear to the person giving you the task that they will have to wait by saying something like, Yes, I can do this, but I wont be able to get to it until after I have completed projects X, Y, and Z. â€" Many workers today are overloaded, but the cycle of working without rest must be broken â€" for your own sake. Find a window of time to sit down and review your workload. Then, identifies the ways in which you can implement the tips in this article to regain a sense of work-life balance.