How do you manage an impossible workload?

During my recent video coaching some common themes have been coming up.

Today I’m looking at leaders struggling to manage their tasks, while also supporting their people. This balance is always difficult, and is being made harder by current social restrictions.

Right now I think it’s appropriate for the balance to shift in favour of people. But how do leaders then get through their own work?

To answer this I draw on Northcote Parkinson, a British civil servant who looked at why bureaucracies tend to expand. The opening of his 1957 book Parkinson’s Law carries this little gem:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Any student knows this, which is why they leave assignments until the last minute. I don’t suggest managers go that far, but I do coach them to decide how much time they’re prepared to allocate, and to stop at that point – for tasks and for the work day.

If they allocated 9 hours, they’d be busy for 9 hours. Then 10. Then 12. The way to break the cycle is to limit the time, not wait for the work to be finished.  It won’t.

I encourage them to draw a line and stay balanced, to be in a better position to live their life and help their people.