On Christmas Eve in the late afternoon, I drove my son and his girlfriend back to the house they were living in a few miles away (they had walked to see us). It was 3.45 pm and on the way back I decided to hurry into the local village and do some last-minute shopping. Big mistake. As I rushed into the car park avoiding a vehicle coming out, I touched a concrete pillar at the entrance - causing some minor but no doubt expensive damage to the paintwork of my car. And both shops I planned to visit were closed anyway for the holidays! As I look back on 2025 and forward to the new year 2026, I was struck by one thing I could do better. I, like I suspect many of my fellow professionals, always attempt (like my shopping example) to cram one more task into an already busy day – when we really don’t need to. Inevitably as I found out to my cost this is invariably when things go wrong.
To put this in a work context if, for example, while you are in a critical contract negotiation you get asked on Teams for urgent advice on another matter. It is so tempting either in the meeting or in the next breakout to try and deal with this and respond online – juggling priorities but by doing so not giving your full attention to either your response or a crucial discussion amongst your team on say limits of liability or some other critical issue in the meeting. The inevitable result is that both clients suffer because, however capable we think we are, it is very hard to do justice to two potentially complex tasks at the same time. It could also be that the new ask is not in fact as time critical as the originator thinks. I recognise that ignoring the request would be irresponsible, but why not delegate a response to a colleague - or put it off for a day? Or speak to your manager and see if they have any other ideas or resource. They won’t think the worse of you and will probably appreciate your seeking help rather than potentially providing a poor service or even making a mistake.
AI suggests “Trying to do too much in a workday leads to stress and burnout, so the key is to prioritize tasks, set boundaries, communicate with your manager about workload, and take regular breaks to maintain focus and well-being. Break down big tasks, focus on one thing at a time (avoid multitasking), and create daily/weekly plans to manage expectations and prevent overwhelm”.
While this article 10 Simple Tips to Help When You Have Too Much Work comments that “While it may seem admirable to take on additional work and support your team when the workload increases, recognising that there are limits to your productivity is essential.” It proposes some simple but effective ways to manage too much work which include:
This is where investment in creating and being part of a great team at work really helps. Then you have others to call on in your hour of need, whether a colleague or manager, who will recognise your request for help and readily pitch in – knowing that you would do the same if the roles were reversed. They also will respect your ask and won’t judge you and think you are somehow shirking taking on your full workload.
Rather than feeling guilty about not achieving all of the items on our “to do” list by the end of the business day maybe, as the author and business consultant Jim Collins advised in his book Good to Great, we should have a “stop doing” list. “Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding ‘to do’ lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing—and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of ‘stop doing’ lists as ‘to do’ lists.”
See this Forbes article Stop Trying To Cram So Much Work Into A Single Day which comments “Multitasking isn’t just a productivity-killer, it’s a recipe for unfocused and fragmented work. Focusing on a single project for an extended period is a skill that requires cultivation”. It proposes creating key themes for your working life which helps planning and can free up time to manage crises.
Technology including AI can and will increasingly be used to enable professionals to work more efficiently and effectively and perhaps help to avoid or at least mitigate this sort of workload dilemma. See, for example, this article Let AI Handle The Busywork So Humans Can Drive Strategy which discusses how agentic AI can help procurement teams focus on adding strategic value. “This is where agentic AI helps. Unlike traditional generative AI, agentic systems serve a specific purpose; various specialized AI agents combine across a workflow, where they will reason, learn and collaborate alongside humans to complete a task.” It concludes “Ultimately, the hybrid human-agent model allows procurement to regain its human side, combining AI’s speed with human judgment to create a smarter, more resilient and trusted function.”
However, the use of more effective processes to prioritise our workloads will only work if we first of all recognise when we have too much on out professional plates and that we need to manage our workload better. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to look out for those times when I am adding yet another task to my daily rota, perhaps unnecessarily, and, having recognised this, do something about it.
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities”. Stephen Covey.
"It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials." Bruce Lee.
“The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough.” Rabindranath Tagore – the Bengali polymath (poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter).
A happy productive, and efficient, New Year to all.
To put this in a work context if, for example, while you are in a critical contract negotiation you get asked on Teams for urgent advice on another matter. It is so tempting either in the meeting or in the next breakout to try and deal with this and respond online – juggling priorities but by doing so not giving your full attention to either your response or a crucial discussion amongst your team on say limits of liability or some other critical issue in the meeting. The inevitable result is that both clients suffer because, however capable we think we are, it is very hard to do justice to two potentially complex tasks at the same time. It could also be that the new ask is not in fact as time critical as the originator thinks. I recognise that ignoring the request would be irresponsible, but why not delegate a response to a colleague - or put it off for a day? Or speak to your manager and see if they have any other ideas or resource. They won’t think the worse of you and will probably appreciate your seeking help rather than potentially providing a poor service or even making a mistake.
AI suggests “Trying to do too much in a workday leads to stress and burnout, so the key is to prioritize tasks, set boundaries, communicate with your manager about workload, and take regular breaks to maintain focus and well-being. Break down big tasks, focus on one thing at a time (avoid multitasking), and create daily/weekly plans to manage expectations and prevent overwhelm”.
While this article 10 Simple Tips to Help When You Have Too Much Work comments that “While it may seem admirable to take on additional work and support your team when the workload increases, recognising that there are limits to your productivity is essential.” It proposes some simple but effective ways to manage too much work which include:
- Ask for advice from an experienced colleague. Speaking to experienced co-workers is a great way to gauge if the entire department is overwhelmed or if your colleagues have the capacity to support you.
- Ask if you can share your workload. A positive way to ensure you complete your tasks while fostering a sense of teamwork is to ask your team for help.
- Create a prioritised task list. Writing a task list and prioritising items by urgency and importance helps you establish what projects need immediate attention.
This is where investment in creating and being part of a great team at work really helps. Then you have others to call on in your hour of need, whether a colleague or manager, who will recognise your request for help and readily pitch in – knowing that you would do the same if the roles were reversed. They also will respect your ask and won’t judge you and think you are somehow shirking taking on your full workload.
Rather than feeling guilty about not achieving all of the items on our “to do” list by the end of the business day maybe, as the author and business consultant Jim Collins advised in his book Good to Great, we should have a “stop doing” list. “Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding ‘to do’ lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing—and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of ‘stop doing’ lists as ‘to do’ lists.”
See this Forbes article Stop Trying To Cram So Much Work Into A Single Day which comments “Multitasking isn’t just a productivity-killer, it’s a recipe for unfocused and fragmented work. Focusing on a single project for an extended period is a skill that requires cultivation”. It proposes creating key themes for your working life which helps planning and can free up time to manage crises.
Technology including AI can and will increasingly be used to enable professionals to work more efficiently and effectively and perhaps help to avoid or at least mitigate this sort of workload dilemma. See, for example, this article Let AI Handle The Busywork So Humans Can Drive Strategy which discusses how agentic AI can help procurement teams focus on adding strategic value. “This is where agentic AI helps. Unlike traditional generative AI, agentic systems serve a specific purpose; various specialized AI agents combine across a workflow, where they will reason, learn and collaborate alongside humans to complete a task.” It concludes “Ultimately, the hybrid human-agent model allows procurement to regain its human side, combining AI’s speed with human judgment to create a smarter, more resilient and trusted function.”
However, the use of more effective processes to prioritise our workloads will only work if we first of all recognise when we have too much on out professional plates and that we need to manage our workload better. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to look out for those times when I am adding yet another task to my daily rota, perhaps unnecessarily, and, having recognised this, do something about it.
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities”. Stephen Covey.
"It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials." Bruce Lee.
“The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough.” Rabindranath Tagore – the Bengali polymath (poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter).
A happy productive, and efficient, New Year to all.
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