How do you deal with work-related stress?
Here’s a topic that I would like to hear some opinions (advice) on. I work in a pretty demanding software role. The positives: I am well compensated and I like the work I do. It also helps that I work on a genuinely useful product whose sole purpose is not only to extract profits from the consumer base. I also do not work overtime.
Therefore I am covered on all bases: moral, financial and personal interest. However, for the past year or so my responsibilities have grown, and I have to juggle more and more (both in number of tasks, their complexity & deadlines) during the same period of time (remember, no overtime).
So now I find myself periodically stressed for longer & longer periods of time. I don’t have energy and motivation for my hobbies, and I dread having to engage in anything more intensive than the occasional walk. But I can tell that this state of being is not sustainable for the long term.
To whoever can relate: what are your thoughts?
Edit: some good things that I have going for myself, that help a little; I have a good sleep schedule, I rarely drink, I don’t stay connected to work outside working hours and I have a very supportive partner.
I have always tried to deal with such issues with making it about priorities. Making it clear to management that they can't have seven different things at top priority. That just means nothing has priority. Some things need higher priority than others and some things won't get done and everyone dependant on it will need to accept that. Of course that ain't always an easy message to get across, and sometimes things need to crash first. No one can take infinite responsibilies, regardless of high up in the ranks they are. And you shouldn't feel you need to take on more than your time allows.
Fourth-ing the importance of prioritization. I think the @Winther @Foreigner and @lackofname's comments cover most of what I would say, but I wanted to offer a practical strategy.
In a very similar-sounding work situation, I started keeping myself a to-do list with tasks in priority order. In a perfect world, I'd work the top task until it was done then take the next one, and so on. In practice, it usually means the top 3-5 tasks are "active", so for each one, I'd have sub bullets capturing what was "next" for those tasks, any blockers, etc.
I'd usually start my day by reviewing my list and deciding what to work on. Often I'd be adding or updating things during meetings related to the tasks. Then I end my day by updating the status of things and adjusting priorities.
I largely managed my own workload in this job, but when it made sense, I would share this list with my supervisor for the sake of transparency. Usually they don't have time to actually review it, so I'd end up reviewing priorities with them in my 1-1s.
An important consequence of this strategy is that things that are probably "unnecessary work" would rot at the end of the list until they became obsolete or assigned to someone else.
If you're in software, then you will no doubt recognize the similarity to kanban or scrum, and you may already be using tools related to those methods. If your tasks and work structure are regimented and disciplined enough that something like a JIRA board captures your tasks and their priorities, maybe you don't need anything extra.
For me, I just had a text note. I would update JIRA boards (or whatever) for the sake of keeping in sync with the team, but do my own planning off my text note.
Call it my "kanban for one" if you like. But I found that any structure besides "the stuff at the top is getting worked on sooner" didn't really survive practical use. Having it be a bit freeform is actually helpful, because real world work is often messy and unpredictable, so the unstructured nature is flexible in ways more formalized systems are not.
This all assumes you have the autonomy to make judgement calls about what is most important to be doing at any time. This takes some practice and experience to develop. One thing you need is the instinct for when something is at risk if failing / not being completed on time and knowing when to escalate it. It might be that you know it's important or time sensitive, but you already have too many more important tasks ahead of it. Or maybe it's blocked, or whatever. Escalating these things is pretty much the "squeaky wheel" that someone else mentioned.
All great advise. My experience (10-ish years now) is that leadership permanently have a laundry list of stuff they want both done yesterday and they want you to know its the most important thing on the planet right now.
Which, as mentioned, is simply not possible in day to day work.
My current place of work is no different, however we have a layer of management between engineering and leadership who are shockingly actually good at their job. Engineers day to day do not see the fires, and leadership does not hear about the trivial problems of someone having trouble implementing a JS library.
I'm not going to pretend to know how they do it, I've not seen first hand the interactions there but I know they happen.
Anyway, without that I think all one can do is be realistic with your direct manager and hope they do their job. If they don't, then honestly I'm not sure what to do if my manager didn't have my back.
This is great advice. I had a system almost identical to yours in the past, but I somehow didn’t stick with it for long enough. I will definitely revisit it.
Agree with this. If you're already in a situation where your hours of work are fixed, so you're not having to set boundaries in that regard, then realistically there's only so much one person can accomplish in a single day.
Perhaps management is trying to "find efficiencies" or "sweat assets" or whatever the local buzzword is, but that has a limit.
My approach is to be the squeaky wheel (respectfully and professionally). I approach these conversations as simply transactional and part of my job. If i don't say anything, no one will know until it's too late (whether it's burnout or missed deadlines). If i do say something, then it's on management to act: either they hire more or deprioritize work.
I fully acknowledge that I'm lucky in that i not only have an incredibly receptive manager, but also one who essentially mentored me on this idea so it's not a stressful conversation for me. If you find the idea stressful (not saying you do, just spitballing), i generally find reminding myself of the transactional nature helps me broach these types of conversations.
I second this advice, and would add that sometimes it's also necessary to say no (diplomatically of course). I understand this isn't always possible, but I've seen too many people not even daring to push back, only to end up completely burned out. Inevitably they are forced to take time off for their health and the work gets passed on to someone else or somehow miraculously it wasn't that important and could wait after all.
I think a good way to say no is by using "yes if..."
As in, "yes, we can get project D done by next week if we delay one of project A, B or C, which have deadlines at x, y, and z."
That's a great way to approach it. If you add something, other things will have to be sacrificed.
Can you take some time off? Even if it's just like a week, a slightly extended vacation does wonders. Even before you take the vacation, knowing that it's upcoming will feel great
It usually does help, but I get only so many days off per year. My next vacation is in December.
any chance you could negotiate to get more days off? if time off is your biggest need right now, you could request more days off instead of a raise, or even ask if you could be part-time for a couple months with a reduced salary. Or an unpaid sabbatical for a month etc.
It’s a thought I’ll keep in mind. Thanks.
I'm in a somewhat similar situation, in that I enjoyed the work and felt it was reasonably ethical, of general benefit. I like the people I work with, and was satisfied with the compensation. Personally, I'm end-career, holding on for healthcare benefits. I'm not seeing other jobs where I could attain the same pay while starting over again with no tenure, without moving away from a place I love.
However, I don't trust the employer or higher management at all after some terrible strategic decision-making that resulted in massive losses and 60% layoffs. I and my coworkers are now doing 2 - 3 people's jobs each.
For the most part, we're mature, experienced, highly productive professionals. We're all adept at prioritization, we know how much effort we can sustain for how long, how to set appropriate timelines, how to shift labor around to cover for each other when vacations and emergencies happen, how to set boundaries, etc. I have project managers zealously guarding my time, but I have 30+ open projects, and context switching is a killer.
We're at the point where everyone is stressed, tempers are hard to control, we're in danger of burnout, and customers aren't getting what they want as quickly or well as they've been given to expect. Workload is increasing, hiring has not resumed. It would take months of increased effort to train new people, with nearly all of the dedicated education staff gone. My immediate manager and his director are just as burdened, if not more so.
The underlying problem is that the organization has sacrificed resiliency, reliability, flexibility, and development for immediate profits. Upper management knows this is the case, pushback doesn't work. [I've started poking at what it would take to unionize...] They are just not motivated to concern themselves with the longer term. We all strongly suspect that our corporate unit is being burnished for sale to another company.
So I'm taking every day off that I'm entitled to. I limit overtime hours to those absolutely unavoidable, and take comp time. I work remotely as much as I possibly can, so I'm not burning scarce mental energy on time in traffic. I take lunch away from my desk. I make time to exercise, get health care (both mental and physical), play with my spouse and pets. I get up and stretch, walk, meditate, or climb a few flights of stairs for 10 minutes every hour. I don't beat myself up about potentially missed deadlines, I just focus on maintaining quality work (there are life safety and patient care implications for defects) and removing all the obstacles I can for myself and my coworkers.
I'm still often drained at the end of each day. My spouse is unhappy, I'm not seeing friends and family or putting time into hobbies. I've lost interest in professional development activities that I used to enjoy, because they just feel like more work. I've had to increase my antidepressant dosage. I am actively looking for other work, and have decided to accept a pay cut if it means that I'm no longer treated as a disposable battery for a money machine. When you've tried everything else, it may be time to bug out.
Your comment gives me some perspective. My gut tells me that my company is at the point preceding your second paragraph. But my situation is definitely not as bad as yours. Sorry you’re going through it!
Thank you - I've been in a spot more closely paralleling yours before as well, but wasn't proactive in bringing the workload and responsibility creep to management. I loved the work so much that I just kept cramming in more, and wasn't prepared for how burnout crept up. It sounds like you have a clearer grasp of the direction things are heading in. I wish you the best in dealing with this situation!
I can do things to take the edge off of stress at work.
However, I've found that I am never completely okay until I change job situations.
I thought about this, but I don’t know how to feel about it. Staying where I am and changing companies is almost certain to result in a paycut, and that doesn’t work for my future plans. But thanks for the input!
Would the pay cut be lower than your pre-"promotion" pay?
Yes, probably more than my last two promotions and one raise combined.
Sorry to hear that.
In my metropolitan area tech people usually get a "raise" when they go to a new company.
Why does it go in the opposite direction for your area/your situation?
I live in Europe and where I’m at, the company is paying way above the market average for my position. I’ve gone to some interviews for senior roles that were paid less than I was as a middle. I guess it’s a blessing and a curse at the same time.
Ah. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity. Happy Friday.
Could you ask for a demotion?
Are you prepared for the consequences of asserting yourself to management? Could you live with their resentment if you told them you can’t work at this new level of workload, and they will need to find a set of tasks that takes you back to a level you can handle? That might just mean you get stalled for promotions. That might mean you get laid off next year. Maybe they really respect you for it and nothing negative happens.
Life is too short to spend it ruined by work stress. Anyone that has the means to demand happiness must do so.
Well, that kind of goes against the moral angle. First of all, I like the product. Second of all, I have a good team. The workload gets distributed pretty evenly, everyone is working on areas that they take ownership of. Me refusing some tasks means one of these guys has to do it. And I’m not comfortable with that.
At the same time I’m aware that it’s not my business, so I have no personal stake in it, except for what my wants and needs demand. It’s a weird sort of cognitive dissonance to have.
The idea would be that the business would take the hit, not your coworkers. Less would get done per work cycle. You could go so far as to check in with coworkers and make sure they aren't getting more added to their plates because you're taking care of yourself.
This all depends on whether management is good or not. If they think that they are owed the world and any protection of your mental health is lethal to the business then you might get axed. But good managers will be grateful that you're giving them the truth. Realistically, they need to know if people are burning out so they can get ahead of that. If everyone hides their stress the result is one day they get a 2-week notice for a critical employee. Now instead of that one employee doing 75% of what was requested they're doing 0%.
I can very much relate to this feeling. My own solution for this was to formalise the prioritisation with my manager. Every Monday I have 30 minutes with my (extremely busy) manager, which we specifically plan in before the team weekly standup / capacity meeting. In my prioritisation meeting (we call it a weekly kick-off) I check two things:
In my case, I firmly hold on to having space for 2 major projects for point 1; that is on my manager to decide which of the two. Ex. We have a dashboard build deadline for client A next week; and we have an internal KPI meeting with various stakeholders that i need to source the data for on Friday. I cannot also do an analysis on the data for client B because i already have my 2 projects for 80% of my time.
For point (2) I give my manager a couple of backlog smaller things I can work on, and they choose the priority of those things.
This all has allowed me to work very efficiently and reduced my stress loads - because it's essentially 'out of my hands'. So if a higher up comes to me on Wednesday asking for me to switch project priorities, I simply point them to my manager and tell them to take it up with their peer. If my manager says okay then sure no problem. That way it's never me saying no, as it well shouldn't be in the role I'm in. I'll also be implementing this when I become a teamlead, so that I can be the person who protects my team members as my manager protects me.
I would recommend you consider if you could depend on your manager or supervisor on doing this for you also. Or are they the person who heaps the extra work on? If so, you don't have a workload-issue, you have a shitty manager issue :(
I am late to reply here, (was not subscribed to this tiles group apparently) but this stood out to me. How is this structured within your company? Because I was reminded of a post of a few months ago where I left this comment. It might not apply to you, but if in your work you never have moments to pause and reflect then things can get quite overwhelming exhausting.
I was in a similar position to you about 5 years ago and did burnout. The biggest lesson I took was to start saying No to things more often. Previously I just said yes to get in good graces with my boss/coworkers and that worked for a good 10+ years. I was younger, had more energy and didnt have kids yet so I could recover in my off time. That all changed with my 2nd kid, then I had no time to recover from hard work days/weeks. I also changed my work schedule and started working 4 days a week and that helped a lot.
I think I saw you wrote you are in Europe? Which country? Any social net for something like this?
Is there any possibility to take every other Friday off (with a reduction in pay). Just having those 3 day weekends every other week does wonders.