You can’t get ahead

You see it all of the time, people busting a gut to try and get ahead of the work that they have, trying to beat the system.  No doubt you are one of them.  You will have bought a lap top or a tablet or a smart phone to give you that extra bit of time to catch up with your  emails, a time machine that is going to solve your work problems and make you more efficient and effective.

Everyone wants to be seen to be in control of their work, able to cope with the stresses and strains that come with the territory, on top of their game.  You want to give off that air of capability, you want to be dynamic and make a difference and so you strive to finish off what you have on your plate.  But it can’t be done, it is impossible, you can never get ahead of your work, you can never meet yourself going forward and the harder you try the more intractable will your work become.  It is the law that you cannot get ahead of your work, as natural as the laws of physics.

There are three reasons why this is so and the first is down to you.  You are putting in the effort to make a dent in that pile of work in front of you and you stretch yourself, go that little bit further, that extra mile.  Your desk is getting tidy and your mailbox is getting empty.  At first you feel a sense of satisfaction perhaps even a hint of smugness but that will soon be replaced by a feeling of guilt.  You have worked so hard as you are self motivated, driven to get results and now you are coasting, slacking with little to do and it feels wrong, very wrong.  You’ve conditioned yourself to work flat out and now you are not.  The very thing that you were trying to beat has come back to bite you and there is only one thing you can do to fill the void, you go and look for more work.

The second factor is down to your colleagues who are also as overworked as you are and are desperate to pass work off to any willing donkey.  They’ll see that look of satisfaction on your face and no doubt they’ve heard you casually bragging about how well you are managing your work and this creates an opportunity, a window for them to pass stuff to you, a tear in the veil that will suck you in.  As you are feeling guilty already (see reason one) you are going to fall for it and within a couple of days you’ll be as busy as you ever where.

The third cause is a result of your work itself.  For those of us in white collar jobs, most if not all of our work only exists because we are doing the job.  You write emails, send out correspondence and ask people to do things.  All of this activity results in people coming back to you, replying to your emails, sending you reports and letting you know how they are getting on with your required tasks.  It starts its own spiral, a vortex, a self fulfilling existence and the work will expand to fill your capacity, if it doesn’t you will make sure that it does (see earlier).  If you weren’t in your job the work would not be created and so your prime role is to create things for you to do yourself.  You are an efficient and effective person and you do this very well, creating more work than you can ultimately cope with.

So if you find yourself working flat out, trying to buck the system just remember that it can’t be done, you can never get ahead.  At the end of the day you will be as busy as you can be because that’s the way the systems works and that’s the kind of person that you are.