Dear work Therapist - how do you recognize you or your teammate is overloaded?

[Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__]

Dear Work Therapist,

in recent months I'm thinking of topics "what does it mean to be overloaded?" and "how can I recognize it on me?"

Last year I shortened my working hours from 40 to 32h/week. I thought I will need to depute some agenda and stop doing something. I did it but I found out it is more complicated than I thought. I had to downwrite what I'm working on, what makes me happy and if I feel useful when working on something.

My conclusion is that I can have only TWO main responsibilities (for example "manager of a team" and "architect for one customer"). I can have more smaller roles but it must be one time or really simple agenda. I tried to escape some conversations and meetings and I feel better.

But my question is... how do you think about this?

Thank you for your thoughts :)

[Patrícia Fortunato Montenegro]

It's a great point @Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__!

I was thinking about it last week. And honestly, I'm always looking at work-life balance.

It means that when I'm felt overloaded, I immediately try to identify what happened. And soon realize what makes me struggle. I don't waste time overthinking it, but I tend to reorganize my main activities and restart with more focus, concentration, and motivation. It's interesting.
But I have to say that this happens without judgment or concern, and I just do it. 🙏🚀

And I believe that you're on a pathway, sometimes trying to be out of a bit meetings, it's more healthy and we can optimize our day, right? 😊😉👏

Have a nice day!

Cheers, 😃

[Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__]

Hi @Patrícia Fortunato Montenegro thank you for your reaction. So I'm not the only one who repeats this process at least once a year. Cool :)

[Patrícia Fortunato Montenegro]

Oh, you are definitely not alone in this! 😉

Let's improve all of us together as a Community @Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__! 🤩🚀

[Anita Kalmane]

I start with a simple question - Am I excited waking up and starting my work day? Does my work energise me and I want to do it? Or is the idea of just another working week/day already giving you a headache?

Of course, there might be more reasons for not liking your job and not only work overload, but it's a good start, IMHO.

[Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__]

Hi @Anita Kalmane I have a problem with this...I like doing almost everything. It is funny because I wanted to use some sophisticated method to find out what I'm best in to be able to focus on it. I did Gallups strenght finder assesment (https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx). You can be good in 30 topics which can be divided to 5 main topics... and it was like 20/20/20/20/20 in my case :D.

So quite often I have to give up something I really enjoy... just because I enjoy most of the things and I do not have enough time :)

[Anita Kalmane]

Oh wow, that's indeed something else! I remember feeling like that in one of my previous roles, I loved everything about it and took loads of additional tasks. You could also ask to your team what do THEY think you're the best at, so you can focus on those and give other tasks where you're a tiny bit less good, to those who excel.

I've now learnt to empower other to pick up easy tasks (like organising a teambuilding), not because I don't like them anymore, but because I see it important for others to develop the organisational skills they might miss - and little can go wrong when organising a teambuilding. By mentoring them on how to do it, in a long run it does give you more time for other things + you can feel proud of others developing new skills due to you. Plus, you get new teambuilding ideas you otherwise wouldn't have thought of yourself!

[Sarah.Eaton]

I think that what you have described is a really valuable process, and something that a lot of us could benefit from.

Some things I find useful are cutting 5 minutes off meeting times, sending a summary beforehand of what is going to be discussed, not attending meetings if my attendance is not essential, if I do a presentation I send the slides to people before or after doing the presentation depending on context.

[Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__]

Hi @Sarah.Eaton , thank you for your post. What you mention is a great way how to save the time for you and your colleagues... cool. I will try to focus on it :)

[Sarah.Eaton]

Thank you, re. the sending of slides beforehand I have noticed other people doing it too now, so it can be contagious! Also if there is something really useful in a presentation then people will want to have access to it! Another thing I just remembered is making documents collaborative, so rather than get all hung up on 'THIS IS MY WORK', send it out there, ask people for feedback, this is a bit scary at first but actually can have some really worthwhile outcomes.

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Hi @Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__ - sharing a link to a video inspired by your message!

We might just feature it on our social handles, too ;)

https://youtu.be/2e55mcl-DVk

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Dear @Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__,

Thank you for raising a question that I think many would benefit from. Burnout is on the rise and has increasingly been during the pandemic. But regardless of when we are in time, knowing when you're overloaded is difficult and it's important we regularly self-check that we're okay there.

• Roles - first, I LOVE that you've defined your roles. Starting from a place of identity is really important. It sounds like you see yourself as 1) a manager and 2) an architect for one customer. I think a lot of people don't realize that they have a role on their team and a role in expertise. For those out there who haven't gone through this exercise, ask yourself these questions:
  • What is your relationship to others in a company--a manager, a subject matter expert, a facilitator of information, a connector between teams and strategies, a model of leadership?
  • What are you really good at? This one is tricky because the answer may be the function you play as an individual contributor, but it may also be something related to the relationships you carry. Think about the outcomes you drive and what you do to push that.
    
    
• Portfolio management - you also mentioned the number of hours committed per week. Like when estimating hours needed for a project or scoping a sprint week, it's important to know how much time you can commit to working for a job. But I challenge you to not think of it in terms of hours, but instead, in terms of outcome needed. You might intensely work for two hours and get the result you want or you might mull over that same project and not nail it over an entire week. Here are some questions to ask yourself if you have the right scope in portfolio:
  • Does the role you signed up for have a clear OUTCOME associated with it? This can be a personal OKR or milestones associated with a goal you want to achieve. 
  • Are you able to break down the outcome you're trying to achieve into REALISTIC CHUNKS or work?
  • Are your manager and teammates aligned with you on TIMING to progress those manageable chunks?
    
    If you can answer the above^ questions, then I think that you can end the day/week/etc knowing that you're meeting expectations. And once you meet them, there's no need to clock in more time. Just my $1.99.
    
    
• Emotional well-being - Satisfying work responsibilities is not to be conflated with satisfying emotional well-being. There's a scale you can create on what it takes to feel full and whole at work. 
  • What are the things that make you feel seen and valued at work?
  • What are the things that drain energy from you at work?
  • Can you create a simple yes/no litmus test from the above questions? If so, that would be a good way to check in with yourself weekly and/or at milestones of projects. It would also be good to share with your manager and teammates so that they can help hold you accountable and alleviate things when necessary. After all, we could all use reinforcement to doing what's best for us emotionally instead of what's best for the company.

Hope this helps. Let me know if any of it resonates! 

[Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__]

Hi @Christine P. Dela Rosa thank you very much, your tips are great.

I totally agree with Roles and Responsiblities. It is so hard do define them, but it is so useful.

I have one problem with Hours vs. Outcomes and maybe you hit the nail on the head. Our team works on activities paid by MD (we are not the product team). So when I work for a customer, I need to work with hours, because I'm paid for hours. Outcome of the hours is agreed with a customer on sprint basis. So MDs are split to sprint activities and these activities are the outcome. But I'm also a leader of few people and the outcome is to have sattisfied and efficient team with team spirit. Maybe that's the problem - two types of agenda, one can be meassured by hours but the other one is better meassured by number of beer we drank together. First one is about solving problems, the second one is about relationship and support... it is definitelly something I will think about.

and Emotional well-being... two weeks ago I prepared a table with columns

• Activity
• Did I enjoy it?
• Was I useful?

I thought I will make the list and analysis on these activities, but quite early I found out, there is no activity in which I'm not useful and I like it... so I stopped these types of activities immediatelly and it helped a lot :)

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Ah yes, billing by hours can cloud things, especially since there is an expectation based on volume of hours. It makes sense that you cut your hours back because that probably helped align expectations closer to what you're comfortable with.

As for emotional well-being, your retro on activities is so useful. Sometimes I think someone out there should create an diary/planner where there's a column for retros. Or, maybe it should be a plug-in with Google Calendar.

[Alexey]

@Christine P. Dela Rosa i'm taking that! Thanks