10 signs that you are working too much
Warning signs that you're working too much and your responsibilities are overwhelming you.
Work is something we can't complain about, especially in an age when everything seems to be so uncertain. Having a salary is a blessing, and we should do everything we can to keep it (or increase it).
However, it is one thing to be a professional, hard-working and responsible person who does everything that is required of him or her, and another to overwork, putting at risk our physical and mental health, our social relationships and even the quality of our work.
This may be the case for you, so you may be interested to see what are the the 10 signs that you are working too much and, if you meet them, open your eyes and seriously consider taking a break.
10 signs that you're working too much (and their causes)
A worker's life is not a bed of roses. While we may like our job a lot, it is true that sometimes we have to do more than we had planned and we do not have the freedom to complain. After all, given the current situation, the fact that we have a job is almost a gift from heaven, and complaining about having a salary could be classified as a first-world problem.
However, it often happens that our job absorbs us, taking away hours to dedicate to more pleasant activities such as spending time with family, friends or dedicating them to our care and leisure. Having extra hours from time to time is usually a bad pill to swallow, but if you only have a couple of hours a day, it is not always easy.But if it only happens a couple of times a month or, at most, a week, it is something we can handle quite well.
Unfortunately, many people have the problem that tasks pile up on them, they begin to take on duties that are not theirs and their boss begins to abuse them by sending them more work than their share. As a result, the workers' health begins to suffer and their social life is also damaged.
But in spite of this it is sometimes difficult for the workers themselves to know that they are working too hard.. Whether motivated by the idea that the more they work the more efficient they are being or that it is totally normal to have to work overtime frequently, many people are unable to see that they are in a situation that is a problem for their social and personal life. To make sure this doesn't happen to you, here are 10 signs that you are working too much.
1. You feel like you never have time for yourself
It is common that, when you work too much, you feel that you have less time for yourself. This often happens without you realizing it at first, either because you are too committed to your work or because you use it as a refuge from the problems in your life.
However, as time goes by, you come to terms with the fact that you have less time for yourself, as time goes by, you take on commitments that go beyond what you are entitled to do, working overtime.you have to work overtime. It is that moment when you see that you do not have time for yourself, nor to spend it with family, friends, to dedicate it to leisure or even to do your needs.
2. You are more irritable and grumpy
One of the signs that you are working too much is that you have become irritable. Tiredness, stress, the frustration of not being able to enjoy your free time and the burden of seeing a pile of pending reports are not good for anyone. In addition to the bad mood, to all this is added the pathos, since the worse mood we are, the worse our efficiency and care at work worsens. the worse mood we are in, the worse our efficiency and care at work worsens..
3. You are unable to relax
You may have a small amount of time in your work schedule in which you can dedicate to yourself. However, you are so stressed and worried about how much you have to do that you are unable to relax, as if you are always on the go, ready for the next batch of reports to be written.
This is not only a problem that manifests itself during your breaks in the office, but also outside of working hours.. You get home and, although you try to let your mind go blank, rest on the couch or fall asleep comfortably in your bed, you are not able to rest at all. You have your button set to "on" and there is no way to set it to "off".
4. You don't get enough rest
Another sign that you are working too hard is that you wake up tired, even if you have slept the recommended 8 hours. This is common when you have such a heavy workload that even when you are asleep you are under stress. and, of course, this affects the quality of your sleep.
In other cases it has more to do with the time you go to sleep, the result of having many pending tasks that make you stay up until late working. Going to sleep at 10 pm is not the same as going to bed at 2 am. No matter how many hours we get to sleep, the body is not made for us to go to bed so late.
5. Your body aches
You are so stressed that you are not only in a bad mood and you notice how you feel emotionally exhausted, but also your body is affected physically.. Your back, neck and joints ache, and you don't really know why but, from the outside, it's easy to see why your body hurts so much: you have such a heavy workload that your stress and anxiety psychosomatize into physical discomfort.
But it's not just your muscles and joints that ache. As a result of being overworked, you often experience Gastrointestinal symptoms such as indigestion and heartburn, as well as headaches, migraines and dizziness. And while it's not certain that you're going to have a heart attack, you feel your heart pumping so hard from the stress that you're afraid it's going to explode in your chest.
6. No fun in your life
The worker absorbed by his work is a being who no longer knows what fun means.. You do so many things that, when you finish them, you see that it is very late and you no longer have time to make plans with your family or friends or to have fun on your own, either reading a book, watching TV or playing video games.
Your life is becoming boring. It's all work, work, work and work and you neglect hobbies and other forms of leisure that give you life. You are working too much when your life becomes one-dimensional and flat, simple and tedious.
7. Your topic of conversation is work
Directly related to the previous point, since all you do is work and more work, you have absolutely no topic to talk about. you no longer have absolutely no topic to talk about. You may be able to defend yourself quite well in your office by telling a joke to your colleague about something in a report or project, but such work humor makes no sense outside your workplace. To your friends, partner, children and other acquaintances you have become monothematic.
8. You feel that there are not enough hours in the day.
Whether it's because your bosses have put too much workload on you or because you've simply organized yourself a bit poorly, you feel there aren't enough hours in the day, you feel that there are not enough hours in the day to finish your obligations..
Overtime has become a regular part of your job and, even though you should talk to someone to get rid of your workload, which is bordering on abusive, you prefer to keep doing everything you are asked to do, even if it causes you stress to see that it is taking longer than you thought it would.
9. Your to-do list keeps growing
Regardless of whether you are an organized person or not, the fact of accepting everything you are given at work makes your to-do list keep growing, logically. At the beginning of the workday, everything seems manageable, as if all the obligations and tasks you are committing to do will be done.
Then the hours go by and you discover that it is humanly impossible to finish everything on your to-do list in one day, so you leave something for the next day. The problem comes that you will be put back on tasks, both mandatory and extra, making the pile of tasks that was already big before now even bigger. If this doesn't make you see that you're working too much, I'm not sure what will...
10. You feel like you'll never catch up
Finally, a sign that you are working too much is that you feel you will never catch up, even though you put in a lot of extra hours at your job, sacrifice some of your rest, are stressed out, and notice how you do a lot of things every day.You are stressed out and feel like you are doing too many things every day.
Added to all the above points, this may be the last straw that makes you realize that you need a break or even ask your boss to slow down and give us less work. You may even urgently need a vacation, because not only do you have too much work, but if you don't get your strength back, you will hardly be able to catch up.
(Updated at Apr 12 / 2024)