I like working. As someone studying graphic design, I find that it is something I could be doing for most of my life. The work I make is great and I love doing it. But I have a problem to deal with: getting overworked. Overworking can be tough on anyone’s health. And with how common overworking is, it can be hard to manage and keep from happening. But there are many ways people can handle and learn to get around it. So let’s see what to look for and learn.

What on Earth am I looking for?

Overworking is very complicated because of how much it affects your work. Overworking can be multiple things: multitasking too much, having too many work hours, working too many hours, etc. So what do you look for? 

Firstly, burnout. Burnout is the feeling of physical and mental exhaustion caused by long-term stress. Burnout is common in any industry. What makes burnout so impactful is that it affects everything, from daily activities to your work. It’s so common that people might even confuse it with stress due to how similar they are. However, burnout is too much stress. You can feel stress without burnout but not the reverse. And it takes many forms in work. The World Health Organization states the following effects of burnout:

• feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
• increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job
• reduced professional efficacy

Burnout is an annoying experience. I never like having it, the constant feeling of no motivation and feeling exhaustion is awful. Burnout happens when I plan poorly or feel overwhelmed with too much work. Having been through it, I know that burnout is very damaging to people’s health. 

Secondly, the effects of too many hours. Working for long periods of time is extremely dangerous to our health for a couple of reasons. Working for too many hours leads to more stress. Stolen Focus by Johann Hari goes into great length on how working long periods is very ineffective to people in chapters 10 and 11. He explains that “as work hours swell and swell, people get more distracted and less productive, and concludes that: “these workloads are not sustainable””. Longer work times also leads to physical exhaustion at work and less focus. 

How to Handle the Problem

There are a couple of ways to avoid these problems. One solution is to avoid multitasking and use a single focus. Vicarel Studio’s Cognitive overload: reduce overwhelm and work-stress for graphic designers and creatives goes into great lengths of the benefits of single focus vs multitasking as a solution for overworking in graphic design. However, the concept applies to all fields due to its linear nature, having soul focus for one task at a time.  They explain the following: 

“Stop trying to multitask! Psychological studies have shown that multitasking is indeed not productive. In reality, what’s productive is to set realistic timelines for individual tasks, and focus on one thing at a time”

While multitasking can be useful, it’s also a big factor in burnout. Since burnout is the result of stress, multitasking often leads to more stress because you are trying to give everything attention all at once. This is the benefit of single focus, which makes you focus on one task at a time. This way, every task is done to its best ability which makes you less overwhelmed. Overworking is often caused by there being too much work to do so when a person focuses their effort on tasks one at a time rather than all of them at once the work becomes less daunting and easier to manage.

Another solution is managing your mental health and your work life. I have been learning to have a better life and work balance using ActivTrak’s article on 8 Solutions to Help Overworked Employees. They explain that; “Employees who have a healthy balance between their personal and professional lives tend to be more engaged and motivated.” Because overworking can hurt everything from mental health to physical health, having this balance will not only make you more motivated but also avoid things like burnout and long-term stress.

Conclusion 

Overworking is never ideal for anyone, but it can be overcome and managed through single focus and understanding my mental health. I realize how damaging overworking truly is to me and other people. I have been working on caring more about my health while going to fun events and working on school assignments at the same time. Now, I give time to my work and give time to myself. Overworking, your days end here!