How To Tell Your Boss You Have Too Much Work

Are you feeling overwhelmed with all the work piling up on your desk? I had that experience when I was a Systems Analyst in a corporate office. I discovered the best way to tell my boss I had too much work. I'll tell you how I did it by communicating effectively with my boss...

I had a load of work with many assignments piling up because other people in the company came to our department for support. We were the Systems Services Department for the corporate computer system.

My boss may not always have been aware of what other department personnel were requesting of me. That was not his job. I was there to support the entire company.

I became so overwhelmed by too much work that I needed to do some workload management. I realized that all I really needed to do was level out my workload with one task at a time. But how do I tell my boss?

I gave some thought to how I can present my dilemma to my boss without making it sound like I was complaining.

I came up with, what I thought was, a brilliant idea. I want to share that with you so you can do it too. Your situation may be different, of course. But the main idea I'm about to present to you will work under any circumstances.

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I went into my boss’s office and asked if I could speak with him. He invited me to sit down and tell him what was on my mind.

I explained to him that I had A, B, C and D on my desk and I wanted to know what priority he felt I should give to each item.

He was extremely pleased that I gave him the courtesy to let him make the decision on the priority of each assignment. I didn’t even expect such a welcoming response.

In reality I was just trying to let him know that I was overloaded with work, without sounding like a complaint. But because of the way I presented it to him, he took it as if I was thinking of his concerns.

The outcome was just what I needed. He told me what priority he preferred for each task. That gave me the ability to have an order of priority and allowed me to work on only one thing at a time.

So no more stress from feeling overwhelmed with too much to do. Once I finished one assignment I could go on to the next.

Doing one thing at a time without the need to worry that I'm not working on the other things was really helpful. I did each job better because I was able to concentrate on it. One at a time. Get one thing done well and move on to the next. Now that's really easy!

I even felt like I had more time to donate to each task because I wasn't feeling rushed to get to the next. So I ended up with a better and more complete project for each task than what was happening before. I basically had banished burnout.

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There’s more! There was a side effect that I didn't consider that turned out to be deeply satisfying. When the time came for my review for a raise, my boss reminded me about what I had done.

He said to me “Do you remember the time you asked me about the priority of your assignments?”

Not knowing what he was about to say about this, I timidly said, “Yes, I remember.”

Then he told me that my approach showed him that I cared about his thoughts as well as how he felt about the order of importance.

He continued... "And you deserve the best raise that I am allowed to give you."

The company had a certain range that they needed to stay within for raises. But I got the top end of that range. My method of communicating with my boss helped me beyond my expectations.

I’m not bragging. I’m telling you this to show you that you can use the same tactics too. Just give it some thought first. Think about how your planned approach would be received. Do this in your own mind first. Then go for it.

Whatever it is that you need to convey to your boss, there is always a good way to present it. This was one of them. It may be unique to a given situation, but now that you know it you will be prepared to contrive your own method of communicating effectively with your boss in a way that will work for you.

Copyright © 2009 Glenn Stok

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