Time Stress: The Real Deal in Your Workplace

Urgent emails, organizing priorities, and ensuring kids are ready for the day. By 9 am, the workday starts, but it’s a constant battle between professional development, career progression, and maintaining relationships with loved ones. You may often find yourself multitasking, and engaging in work-related activities.

Whether men or women should effortlessly handle everything, extending from multiple roles to professional life. The challenges intensified during the pandemic, adding homeschooling and caregiving for elderly parents to an already demanding career phase.

The struggle to ask for more time on deadlines, and flexibility, stems from the societal perception that needing additional time is a sign of weakness, especially in male-dominated corporate cultures. These internalized pressures often lead women to undertake more than they can manage. This societal pressure leads to time stress–feeling of overwhelming tasks and insufficient time.

Here are the strategies to Combat Time Stress:

1. Personal Measures: Setting boundaries, delegating tasks, seeking mentorship, negotiating flexible work arrangements, and confidently declining when necessary can help feelings of inadequacy.
2. Managerial Role: Regular check-ins, discussions about workload challenges, and an empathetic approach by managers can prevent the escalation of time stress, creating a supportive work environment.

Overcoming feelings of unworthiness involved proactive communication about her capabilities and limitations, emphasizing the need for a positive work culture where colleagues collaborate rather than compete, irrespective of gender.