I promise that if you read this article to the end you will feel a bit better than you do now.

Why is overwork so common and why is it stressful

The use of information processing equipment has made an excessive workload normal for many workplaces. Computers can collect information and pass it to humans millions of times faster than we can process it. The human brain is designed to find food, shelter and sex in a slowing changing environment and for the last 10,000 years this has involved planting seeds, waiting a few months, eating them and perhaps dating the boy/girl next door. Evolution has not prepared us for the modern workplace where something may happen every few seconds.

Think, Feel, Sustain

Humans are called homo sapiens – “thinking person” but this is only one part of our being, equally important are the homo poeticus and homo animalis.

Homo poeticus is our poetic person who feels emotions and cares for the dead, the living and those to come.

Homo animalis is our biological person that has basic needs that must be sustained if we are to be healthy and happy.

These three aspects of your self must be developed in partnership if they are to bear a heavy workload (see header image).

It is not just you

If you are feeling overwhelmed by work the first thing to realise is that it is not just you. This will be default for everyone in your role because everybody’s brain works the same way.

Everybody’s brain works the same way

You are not special.

It is very trendy at the moment to diagnose one’s “neural type” but the minor differences between people’s brains and thinking patterns are completely irrelevant compared to their similarity. For example, some people can easily remember 5 numbers, a few can remember 10. This is interesting but irrelevant in a workplace that requires you to “remember” 100s of things.

The advice in this article will help anyone.

So why do others cope better than me?

Many people are not coping, they are suffering in silence and hiding it better than you. If you suspect this is the case, do a little good and share this article.

However other people find coping mechanisms by accident. They find what works for them by trial and error and copying colleagues. This is OK but it means that they suffer a lot first. It is better to actively adopt methods that will help you cope better.

Developing Homo Sapiens

Perhaps the greatest contribution to reducing the stress from an excessive workload comes from our ability to analyse it. Your analytical “wise” person can create the conditions where emotional “poetic” person can cope. It is very unlikely that any other advice will reduce your stress if you don’t analyse your workload.

Informal analysis can help you get “a mind as still as water”

When people are overloaded with information during the day they can get “whirly brain” in the evening. All during the evening the brain spins with thoughts that may or may not be connected and it can be difficult to sleep because you are anxious that you have forgotten something important.

The solution to this problem is well know and works well. You have to externalise all your thoughts by writing them down. This “brain dumping” (a term popularised by the book “Getting Things Done”) quietens your mind because it knows that it does not have to remember anything.

I simply create a Mind Map in my note book. I just write down everything in my brain as quickly as I can joining connected items with lines. When I have done this I don’t have to worry any more because it is all there. It works for me. It will probably work for you. Try it, you may be surprised.

Formal analysis allows you to get take control

A lot of workplace stress comes from feeling out of control because you are bombarded with information from all sides and don’t know what you should be doing.

Fortunately it is possible for you to take control. Create a simple table like this in your spreadsheet of choice.

I have created dummy data for a police officer with a high case load but this will format will work equally well for a social worker or anyone else with a high case load.

These fields capture the essential information but you may need to add fields for your particular job.

Column	Purpose
Date	When the case was created. (Optionally add an additional Updated field)
Case ID	Unique identifier for tracking and reference.
Title	A short, descriptive name for the case.
Triage	Priority or urgency rating (e.g. High, Medium, Low).
Next Action	The immediate next step to take (e.g. Call witness, Await documents).
Waiting For	Who or what you’re waiting on (e.g. Court, Victim, Forensics).
Comment	Notes, observations, or updates from recent activity.
Status	Overall state (e.g. Open, Paused, Closed, Escalated).

Understanding “Triage” (sorting)

When a bomb goes off there are too many cases for the medical personal to treat so they must “triage” them to prioritize treatment.

There are typically four categories (“triage” means “to sort” in French),

• Immediate – Critical cases that need urgent care.
• Delayed – Serious but not immediately life-threatening.
• Minimal – Minor injuries; can wait.
• Palliative – Low chance of survival; may receive palliative care instead.

In a under-resourced workplace with many cases it is often the case that only Immediate cases will be addressed. This imposes a mental burden that I discuss in the next section.

Understanding “Waiting For”

When you work in a team your productivity (how many cases you can close) depends on the output of others. It is essential that you record these as “Waiting For” in your control sheet. This helps you understand intellectually and emotionally the extent of your workload.

Engaging with Homo Poeticus

Getting into a good place mentally.

Purpose

The most fundamental question is “What is the meaning of my life”, it provides the bedrock for our existence and is a question every person must answer for themselves. Most people are content with the working answer “to do what little good I can everyday” while others will choose grander missions.

It is important that you separate your personal identity from your professional identity. You may be doctor, scientist, nurse or police officer but these does not define you as a person. Your job is simply a means to a greater end.

Psychological Strategies

Acceptance and Realism

Running large organisations like the Social work Departments, the NHS or the Police is an impossible job because politicians have an incentive to promise a lot to voters and then not pay for it.

Politicians will appoint managers who will repeat their lies back to them. Obviously you would not get the job as Chief Constable if you said at the interview “obviously we can’t investigate every burglary when you cutting our budget” if the Home Secretary has just been on the telly saying that you will.

• Why do they get away with lying so flagrantly?

Our agrarian brains have a very limited ability to understand the abstract. We can quickly understand how much more difficult it is plough 40 fields than 1 field but have no intuitive grasp of how much more difficult it is to process 40 cases than 1 case. To politicians and senior managers and even the workers themselves it seems like it “should be possible if we just try harder” but it is not.

• We must accept that the system is flawed. We can only do what we can and it is not our duty to deliver on other peoples’ impossible promises.

We must be realistic, not cynical. Two hundred years ago our cities had no social welfare, no public healthcare and no police service. Our flawed system is a massive advance on what we had before and progress is measured across decades, not years. Our own contribution is small but it matters.

Cognitive Distancing

This means creating a mental boundary between oneself and the job:

• Viewing cases as “work” rather than personal missions.
• Reminding oneself, “I can only do what I can do.”
• Not internalising outcomes you can’t control (e.g., dropped cases, poor outcomes).

This isn’t apathy—it’s a form of emotional detachment used to protect one’s mental health.

Selective Emotional Engagement

Some people choose where to care, and where not to:

• They engage more in cases they feel are meaningful and are likely to have a good outcome.
• They stay neutral in others that are routine, repetitive, or unlikely to have a good outcome.

It’s about managing emotional energy rather than suppressing it completely.

Feeding Homo Animalis

It is impossible to separate our intellectual, emotional and animal selves. The animal needs food, water, shelter, rest, sex and security. Without these and good health it is not possible to think clearly or feel well.

There is no shortage of health advice on the internet and I will am sure that you can develop strategies that meet your needs.

And Finally

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
— Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

There is no-one who can reduce your stress over an excessive workload except you. Your first steps should be to do a “brain dump” to calm your mind and then create a control sheet to manage your work.

If after a two weeks you are still stressed discuss your control sheet with your line manager. It is a solid evidence that shows your work challenges are not due to incompetence or idleness but because you have too many cases.