The state of being overworked is an awful state for an employee to be in, as it affects their work-life balance.

According to Indeed, an online blog, when employees are overworked, they are unable to maintain a good work-life balance. Long hours, stressful tasks, and insufficient breaks lead to an employee feeling overworked. When you are overworked, you may experience burnout. Burnout comes from extended workplace stress and can lead to feelings of exhaustion, reduced efficiency at work, and a mental distance from work.

Reasons why employees get overworked

Catherine Ruhinda, a sales manager at a local shipping company, says that being overworked may occur from a busy day or week in a company or an organisation.

"There are days when in a workplace there is too much to be done, a lot of work to finish, deadlines to meet and therefore employees might be asked to work more hours or overtime. This is a time where all employees especially the ones that work hard with all their efforts to meet the expectations will feel very tired and stressed when the work is done,” she says.

Jean Jacques Kalisa, a project manager, says that being overworked also comes from employers that expect their employees to always be connected and available for work matters at all times.

"Some employers expect their employees to continue their work even when the job hours are done, they expect them to answer emails and calls whenever something comes up without considering that they need time to move away from work and do other things, that also may cause an employee to feel like they have no place to escape work from or that they have no space to breathe,” he says.

How to deal with being overworked

James Rubagumya, Head of Strategy at a local multimedia company, says that to deal with being overworked or feeling that work is never ending, a person can set boundaries in their workplace and inform their manager.

"I believe that in every workplace there are starting hours and ending hours that should be respected, an employee can set their own boundaries, let’s say if the working hours are done they should inform their manager that when they are done with work they don’t answer calls related to work, or work emails, they can create a culture where everyone will respect and understand it, and that way they won’t be bothered during their resting hours and they won’t feel overworked,” she says.

Octave Manzi, a cinematographer, advises breaking hard tasks into small and easier tasks.

"You can take a big task that seems hard to execute and divide it into two parts, examine the less hard parts and start with them, then go on to the ones that seem to be hard and time-consuming, breaking a task into small tasks makes the workflow much easier and enjoyable,” he says.

In an article by Erin Eatough, an occupational health psychologist, she suggests learning how to say no to specific tasks.

"Listen to yourself if you can sense that you are reaching your breaking point. Most jobs can wait until tomorrow if it means bettering your health,” she advises.

Her article also says that delegating tasks to others and initiating more teamwork can help.

"You don’t have to rid yourself of tasks completely, but offloading tasks can help you stay focused on more important things. Sometimes someone else has the capacity. They might want the opportunity. When you redistribute the workload it creates a learning opportunity for other team members to sharpen their skills,” she advises in the article.