In the short term slogging away at work can feed your addiction for adrenalin, closing that deal or getting that “Yeehah” from your boss, but long-term it can result in health issues, marriage breakups, kids going A.W.O.L., obesity, depression and a fragmented sense of self where you have no value in yourself outside of your work. So how do you know if your high level of productivity is tipping into the dangerous territory of overwork? There are several signs to look out for.

 

7 Signs You’re Tipping from Effective to Overworked

 

1.    Physical symptoms

Stress symptoms and health issues are perhaps the most obvious signs that you’re stepping beyond productive to overworked. These symptoms are different for everyone and the problem is most of us ignore the early physical warnings like grinding teeth at night, headaches, lack of appetite, regular sore throats or colds, and unusual fatigue. Instead we wait for chronic fatigue, exhaustion, panic attacks, burnout or worse still heart issues, and mental breakdowns. Get to know your own early physical signs of when you reach the tipping point of overwork.

 

2.    Irritability and low people tolerance

Despite feeling that we are effective at our tasks, when we’re heading into overwork our tolerance of others starts to deteriorate. Little things bother us; we react with impatience and frustration, and find it hard to let things go. Those around us start to feel the sting of our bite, as we snap and erupt.  We find ourselves nit picking other people’s mistakes, and criticising more than usual. Be conscious of the initial stages of that churning angst in your stomach in reaction to small things done by those around you.

 

3.    Increased errors

As you may have noticed, when you are overworked it’s common to start making more errors than usual -- confidential emails get sent to the wrong person, you double book yourself with your two most important clients, you can’t find that report you spent seven hours putting together. Sure you might be getting through more items on your to-do-list by being Mr Super-effective but with the added errors of overwork it becomes two steps forward and one step back.

 

4.    Feeling overwhelmed

Research by the Families and Work Institute, suggests that a good measure of overwork is one that is made internally. In their research they used self-rated measures of the following three questions, from “not at all” to “often”, to determine whether someone was overworked:

a.    Felt overworked in the last month?

b.   Felt overwhelmed by how much work you had to do in the last month?

c.    Felt you haven’t had time to step back and process / reflect on work you’re doing in the last month?

So perhaps one of the best ways to recognise if you’re tipping from effective to overworked is to use an internal gauge of how overwhelmed you feel in general in any given period of time. As an example, every Monday morning you could give yourself a rating for the previous week on each of the three questions above and see how you go over a period of say six or eight weeks?

 

 

5.    Resentment toward employers

Are you feeling resentment toward your manager or boss because of your workload? If so, then it could be another sign you’re overworked rather than just being super-effective. All of us have our limits, and if you feel that yours are constantly pushed too far and it leaves you feeling bitterness toward your employer -- this is not a good thing. Resentment is bad for your health, and leads to a lack of self-satisfaction and fulfilment at work which are pretty darn important. I mean if you’re such a great worker, why stay somewhere you feel undervalued and pressured, when you know how good you are at what you do?  Either it’s time to speak up about it, think about changing jobs or if you have no intention of leaving and know it will never change, make a self-serving decision to accept the pressure and let go of the anger and blame.

 

6.    Can’t find the brakes

Being super-effective provides a desirable feeling -- it’s satisfying to achieve great things and feel good at the end of a day, having moved proactively through your list of important tasks. However, if you can’t get yourself to put your foot on the brakes at the end of the day, you’re likely allowing yourself to overwork. Perhaps you’re your own worst enemy and have unrealistic expectations of yourself. If so, it can help to introduce firm boundaries that you stick to despite not feeling like it, such as a work time cut offs, no access to email or mobile at home or “no thinking about work allowed” when you’re with your loved ones. Recruit others to help you stick to these boundaries.

 

7.    Every day is a bad day

If you know you’re effective at work but are still finding it hard to drag yourself out of bed each day to get yourself to there, chances are you’ve hit a tipping point. Beware if this is you as you could be on the road to burnout or even depression. It does not matter how productive you are, how often you nail that sale or carry out killer negotiations; if you’re finding every day a bad day your effectiveness just isn’t worth it. Start putting your happiness and enjoyment of life as a top priority.

 

 

Author of De-stress Your Success: Get More of What You Want with Less Time, Stress and Effort, Sacha Crouch is a business, executive and life coach who helps people create the work and lives they love. For other free lifestyle resources visit www.activ8change.com.au