Sneaky tasks keeping you overworked & overwhelmed

In a recent leadership workshop I was hosting for women leaders and clients of a financial institution, I decided to play some bingo to liven the mood. 

I told the group that my game was risky, because there was a mix in the room of senior leaders, corporate business owners and CEOs. I wasn't sure if the box categories would resonate. Sadly, they did - we had multiple “winners.”  What type of bingo did we play? 

Unpaid office workload bingo. 

Today, August 26, is Women's Equality Day. It marks the anniversary of the certification of the 19th Amendment, which granted some women the right to vote. However, there are many areas in which women are still working toward equality, namely in pay equity, reproductive rights and in our topic today - the workloads they carry at work. 

Research by Linda Babcock, published by Harvard, revealed that women get 44% more requests at work to volunteer for unpaid, “non-promotable” tasks. Non-promotable tasks are those that benefit the organization but likely don’t contribute to someone’s performance evaluation and career advancement.  

These tasks include traditional office “housework,” such as coordinating parties and office events, as well as filling in for a colleague, or serving on a low-level committees. Men will tend to be given and say yes to strategic projects with higher level networking or visibility. 

In my coaching practice, this is the single largest cause of burnout, exhaustion and anxiety in my clients. They are simply taking on too much work that is not contributing to their advancement and holding on to projects that no longer serve them.

Here's the thing: Giving women the brunt of the workload hurts men, too! It hurts their profits as leaders of organizations due to employee turnover and burnout. It hurts their potential as leaders because they miss out on the empathy and EQ building skills that come from coordinating tasks that often touch the well-being and hearts of their teams.

🔥 To keep women in critical leadership pipelines, generate equality and advance them to the rooms where decisions are made, it’s time to equalize the burden of unpaid work. It's hard to build sustainable confidence and results if you’re consistently overworked and overwhelmed.

PUT THIS IDEA INTO ACTION

What do you do when you find yourself on the exhausting end of too much unpaid work? You have permission NOT to be the one rushing in and overfunctioning all the time (this enables others to underfunction 🫠) 

Here's the same activity I conducted in class. First, reflect on your last 45-60 days at work or home. List the tasks, projects, meetings or commitments that drain your energy most. Then ask:

1. What can I dump? Look at your work calendar or your home to-do list. What tasks or habits have you taken on because they made sense at the time, and you’ve kept doing them out of habit?

2. What can I delegate? If the work you’re volunteering for is something you can do in your sleep and burning you out, perhaps there’s someone better suited to be taking this on? What presents an opportunity for a new employee, or child, to develop a crucial skill?

3. What can I outsource? What can you outsource at work via a contractor or an errand runner or something that you can hire? What can you outsource at home?

🔥 A script to say no:

Thank you for thinking of me for ________. 

Right now I am committed to completing/spending my time in ________ so I am unable to accommodate this right now.

I'd be happy to chat with you about who else might be excited to take this on.

Kelli Thompson is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and executive coach who specializes in helping high achievers advance to influential leaders in their organizations. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Closing The Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential & Your Paycheck.

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