What managers can do when feeling completely overwhelmed

Stress, pressure from management to complete a project successfully, multiple high priority tasks at once, problems within the team: from time to time these and many other issues result in managers feeling completely overwhelmed. What to do at such times? Here are a few tips.

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Delegate more

The first step is obvious: delegate more tasks to subordinates. If you keep too much work to yourself, it is obvious that overload can occur very easily.

Reassess priorities

You should always work with task priorities, focusing on the most  important ones and postponing or passing on the less important. A problem arises when many high priority tasks appear at the same time. Then it is necessary simply to reassess the priority of these tasks. At first glance it may not seem obvious but many tasks which appear crucial can tolerate some delay.

Communicate openly with your team

According to the Harvard Business Review, when you are overwhelmed, you shouldn't be afraid to communicate with your team  Don't try to be a hero: instead, discuss the issue. Not only will this help resolve the given problem more easily but you will also show subordinates it is acceptable to speak about capacity issues, feelings and difficulties.

Focus on one task at a time

Don't try to multitask. Form a clear plan, allocate specific time blocks to separate tasks, then in these blocks work exclusively on the given tasks.

After the crisis, form a long-term plan for improvement

Once the worst has passed and you no longer feel so overwhelmed, pause and consider how you initially got into difficulties. Decide what needs to change so that such crises do not recur and you can avoid them in the long term.



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Article source Harvard Business Review - flagship magazine of Harvard Business School
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