Talking to your Boss when you're Overloaded

When we get overloaded at work, we'd like to say something, but many of us have multiple managers on multiple projects. They don't really care what your other commitments are as long as you get their stuff done. Beyond being short-sighted - burning somebody out is a sure fire way to get poor quality work - there needs to be a better way to deal with this. Our Founder, Alan Levy, was recently talking with a mentee about this. He realized a spin on the WBS could be helpful, because it backs up your complaint with hard data. A WBS, or Work Breakdown Structure, is a project management tool for determining how much man-power is required to complete a project. By using the same methodology with your weekly commitments, you can PROVE you are overloaded. It also shows which tasks on which projects contribute the most workload. Having this data enables a much more meaningful conversation with your manager. Now you can re-prioritize and/or eliminate tasks to lighten your load without being detrimental to the managers' objectives.

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