Before the productivity gurus boo me off my own stage, hear me out. Finishing every task on your plate is much like being made to finish all the food on your plate – it’s actually not that good for you. Your body knows when you’ve had enough, even if your parents (or bosses don’t).

It was 2am. Sara was still on her laptop at home, slugging her way through her overflowing inbox, again. This was the third night in a row. Her department was going through a restructure, and two people in her team had been made redundant. There was a hiring freeze so no one was available to pick up the extra workload… except for her. This had been going on for a year. Sara was stressed, overwhelmed and exhausted. She wanted to say no to the extra work. She wanted to push back on the increased expectations of her, and get some balance back. But she couldn't. Sara was committed to getting the job done. She was conscientious. She was a team player. If something had to get done, she would get it done… but at what cost??

Eventually, Sara’s work began to suffer. She started making mistakes, she got bogged down in rework, and she was letting things slip. And this caused her the most stress of all. This was not the person she wanted to be. This was not the quality of work she was known for. She’d had enough. She needed to let things go.

For some, the idea of letting work go is impossible – they stay back late, they stay up late, they work like Trojans to get everything done. They end up exhausted and burnt out. For others, ignoring work is easier, but painful nonetheless - they let work silently slip through the cracks, constantly wracked with guilt, waiting to be found out, waiting to be reprimanded, hoping to find the time to catch up in the cracks. It never happens.

As far as managing work loads, neither of these two options seem very appealing, but there is a middle ground here – a considered approach to letting things go. This is a skill that allows you to leave things long enough to test if they are really ‘urgent’ or ‘important’ to others. Often things seem more pressing on the day, or in that week, but if you just can’t physically get to it (because: you’re human) then you might be surprised how the urgency fades as the days go by. I’m often surprised how easy it is to delete things once the ‘moment’ has passed. Especially for my own team. If I know the work prioritization better than they do, it’s easy for me to do a sweep of old tasks and clear them off the plate.

Jeremy worked over the weekend. His boss had piled him up before the Regional leader was due to visit next month. There was much to get done. Being diligent and committed, Jeremy worked hard to wade through the tasks. A few weeks in, he came down with the flu. Completely bedridden for a full week, he came back to work and did his best to catch up. After the Regional leader had left town, Jeremy found the head space to check on outstanding work. A lot had been missed, but curiously no one had said anything. That ‘critical must have’ that he didn't deliver, had not even been needed, mentioned, or missed. Many other tasks had also dropped in importance now the Regional leader was gone. He wondered what other tasks he had busted his butt to get done, weren’t really that important?

What Jeremy began to appreciate is that not everything is of equal importance. This might sound obvious but some people have a (compulsive?) need to complete things, tick off their full to-do list and close all open loops. Whilst this is great productivity behaviour in general, there are times when this compulsion works against you.

Learning from my own experience here’s what I can tell you about tasks that get allocated:

Sometimes they are a must-have
Sometimes they are a nice-to-have
Sometimes they are a whim (not important at all)

Most importantly, sometimes their priority changes mid stream and sometimes we place an expected priority on them without really checking.

How to start letting go of work

Ask the following questions.

Is this important?
Is this still important?
Who is this really important to?
Are they important to me?
What’s the worst that can happen if I don't do this?
What’s it truly costing me to do everything?

Try the following strategies.

Say yes to work and don't start it until you get asked for it a second time
Say yes to work, and then do it a week later to see if anyone noticed
Say yes to work and then don't do it all… eek!

I know this sounds like terrible advice; like I’m encouraging you to wag work or get away with being lazy, but I’m not. This is about corporate survival. It’s about protecting your ability to deliver great work. It’s about your sanity. Human beings are not machines. We need to listen to our bodies. When we are full, we are full. Full stop.

Who’s with me?