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...You’re Getting Too Much Work

Lesson 5 from: What to Say When…Tips and Scripts for Tricky Situations at Work

Ilise Benun

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Lesson Info

5. ...You’re Getting Too Much Work

Lesson Info

...You’re Getting Too Much Work

What to say when you're getting too much work. Here's the situation. Your workload is already full, but your department just lost another employee, or just acquired another project and you were assigned additional tasks. What you may be thinking and what you definitely should not say is, this isn't fair! I can't take on any more. Here's the solution. Make your boss aware of your capacity and how close you are to it. If they already are and don't care, or simply don't have a choice, you must engage them in prioritizing your tasks so that you're doing the ones they agree are most important. Coming to your boss with a list of your current responsibilities and laying out how the new work affects your ability to get current things done helps a ton. Likely, your boss isn't just the boss of you and may not know what everyone in their department is working on. Helping them understand will definitely help you get what you need. Here's what you could say. You could use curiosity and ask, is ther...

e a reason that position hasn't been filled? Do you really think this can be done well enough with fewer hands? Or you could use generosity. I'm happy to rough out the to-dos for this additional project with you, then you'll have the specifics of the additional resources we'll need to complete the project. Or you could try humility. I appreciate the trust in me with this additional responsibility, but I will need some help handling this additional workload. Here's what I think I will need. What resources are available? The overarching idea here is that taking care of yourself is your number one priority. If you burn yourself out, you're of no use to yourself or the company. You are the one who must advocate for yourself. You must be clear about what's possible and make sure you're doing the most important tasks. Make sense?

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Karlie Jessop
 

Love the format of this course - it was so great to be able to select a specific situation, and then quickly learn a couple of approaches to each one.

Aleksandra Walker
 

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