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Overworked and Overwhelmed summary

Name: Overworked and Overwhelmed
Rating: 4.2 (194 reviews)
Author: Scott Eblin

Scott Eblin

The Mindfulness Alternative

4.2 (194 ratings)

20 mins

Brief summary

Overworked and Overwhelmed by Scott Eblin offers practical strategies for managing workplace stress and achieving a better work-life balance. It helps readers identify their sources of overwhelm and offers concrete steps for creating more time, energy, and focus.

Topics

Routines & Habits Mental Health Focus

Table of Contents

Overworked and Overwhelmed
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Discover simple stress-busting strategies that deliver.

It’s often said that the past is a foreign country. That certainly applies to the world of work. From the perspective of our relentless 24/7 business culture today, the old days of nine-to-five shifts and three-martini lunches look about as mysterious and decadent as the lives of the late Roman emperors. Today, it’s hard enough switching off in your free time, never mind during office hours!

That’s hardly surprising. After all, the mid-twentieth century and the present are, technologically speaking, light-years apart. Innovations like the internet, email and smartphones have made it harder than ever before to get away from work. If you have an iPhone, your boss is always right there in your pocket waiting for you to open that email she sent at 10:00 p.m.

And that’s starting to take its toll. Professionals have never been so stressed and sleep-deprived. They’re unhappier, less productive and staring down the barrel of burnout. So it’s high time to make some changes! These blinks walk you through a series of simple, stress-busting strategies and explains the science behind them. Start integrating them into your professional life today, and you’ll be amazed at how much better you’ll soon feel.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why office stress triggers your fight-or-flight reflex;
what a little meditation can do for your mental and physical well-being; and
why keeping up with old friends can help you beat work-related stress.

Life is becoming increasingly hectic, and stress levels are on the rise.

There’s no sugarcoating it – life has become more stressful. Getting up at six, grinding out a grueling shift at the metaphorical coalface and collapsing into bed at eleven in the evening is the new normal. But it wasn’t always like this. In fact, things have gotten a whole lot crazier over the last decade.

So, what’s behind our increasingly hectic work lives? Well, let’s rewind to 2008. The economy was in freefall, and companies were scrambling to adjust to the harsh new realities. Lots of companies only managed to survive by downsizing their staff and restructuring workloads. The result was fewer people shouldering a whole lot more than their fair share of responsibilities.

Then there’s the smartphone. Apple launched its first iPhone in 2007. Soon enough, it had taken over the world. According to a 2012 study in the MIT Technology Review, the iPhone conquered 40 percent of the American mobile phone market within just a couple of years. That’s pretty astonishing when you consider the fact that it took computers fourteen years to achieve anything close to that level of market penetration.

The problem, however, is that smartphones don’t just make life more convenient and fun. Sure, you can check Instagram and send tweets, but this also means you’re always on standby mode. Your work is never more than a click away. A 2013 study carried out by the Center for Creative Leadership highlighted this trend. The surveyed executives and managers with smartphones spent an astonishing 72 hours every week engaged in work-related activities!

That’s not sustainable. When work gets too hectic, our stress levels shoot through the roof. According to a study by the American Psychological Association, 33 percent of all Americans suffered acute work-related stress in 2013, while 48 percent claimed that their stress levels had increased over the previous five years.

A full 83 percent of interviewees in the study believed that stress was negatively affecting their health. They’re not wrong! When the Benson-Henry Institute in Massachusetts looked into the matter, they found that between 60 and 90 percent of all trips to the doctor were stress-related.

So what can you do to beat stress? Stay tuned to find out!

Practicing mindfulness counteracts the natural fight-or-flight response triggered by stress.

Have you ever had the urge to jump out of your office chair, run right out the door and never come back? That’s a pretty good sign you might be suffering from work-related stress. The desire to flee is one of the body’s natural responses to stress. That’s part of the “fight-or-flight” response, a cerebral and hormonal reaction to life-endangering events. Here’s how it works.

Imagine someone jumps out from behind a corner with a weapon. Your brain – or, more precisely, the command center of your brain known as the thalamus – is the first to react. This, in turn, triggers the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for processing emotions. This then activates the hypothalamus, the area in charge of regulating the autonomic nervous system, which transmits a message to your adrenal glands. These start pumping out adrenaline – a hormone that prepares your body to react quickly and, if need be, violently. Once it runs out of adrenaline, your body switches to cortisol, another hormone with a similar effect.

The best way to minimize stress is to develop a supportive daily work rhythm.

You’ve probably heard the old Chinese proverb that says giving a man a fish feeds him for a day, but teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. That’s also a good motto when it comes to stress reduction. Quick fixes like nipping out for a coffee have their uses, especially when you’re in a pinch, but the best way to minimize stress is to develop a long-term anti-stress plan.

Here’s an idea: start by trying to work out a supportive daily work rhythm. That’s precisely what Hilton Hotels CEO Chris Nassetta did. In his case, that involved getting up earlier to free up time to mull over his day’s responsibilities. Nassetta gets up at five every morning and aims to be in the office by six at the latest. Since his work officially only starts somewhere between eight and nine, that gives him at least two hours to prepare for the day ahead. The upshot? He can think through his tasks without losing focus or worrying about what’s coming up later. Rather than drifting off in the middle of a conversation because he’s worried about what he’ll say in an upcoming meeting, he can be fully present and engage with the people he’s talking to.

Having clear routines and feedback systems supports you both personally and professionally.

Imagine you had to summon all your willpower to do even the most mundane tasks, like brushing your teeth or tying your shoelaces. Life would be unbearably exhausting, right? Luckily the human mind has an autopilot function that helps you do these things without wasting too much brainpower. And here’s the thing – you can get the most out of that nifty cerebral technology by cultivating routines. That’s good news for your personal life.

So, how can you start putting that into practice? Well, there are three words you need to remember: cue, routine and reward.

Exercise is a highly effective stress remedy.

Lots of people accept stress as a fact of life and try to put a brave face on it. It’s only when they finally burn out or get seriously ill that they start considering changes. But that’s not the right approach. In fact, you can spare yourself no end of suffering by taking action today. And here’s the good news: you don’t even need to make particularly radical changes to boost your well-being.

Sometimes all it takes to beat work-related stress is exercise. That doesn’t necessarily mean taking out a gym membership, though. Simple rhythmic and repetitive movements like walking, jogging, cycling, dancing or even going through some yoga poses can significantly reduce stress.

Visualizing stress-free success and savoring the moment are also useful stress-busters.

As we’ve seen, physical movement is an excellent way of relieving stress. Unfortunately, that’s not something we can do whenever we need a bit of relief. After all, you can’t just leave your office to go for a jog whenever you feel like it! That means it’s also a good idea to develop some cognitive strategies to quiet your mind. In this blink, we’ll look at two top techniques that’ll help you do just that.

Let’s start with being in the moment. Stress is all about worrying about the past or the future. Learning to appreciate the present pushes those anxiety-inducing thoughts to the back of your mind. Best of all? You can start practicing this kind of mindfulness without making any changes to your routine. The reason for that is simple. Remember those autopilot activities like brushing your teeth we talked about earlier? Well, those are the kinds of things you can focus on to become more present!

Cultivating new friendships and staying in contact with old friends is great for your mental health.

What’s worse than those endless shifts that bite into your evening? Getting off work and not having anything to do or anyone to do it with. The simple truth is that isolation just isn’t good for your mental health. Friends matter – a lot!

That means it’s in your best interest to make an effort to stay in touch with old friends. How you do that depends on your personality type. As Susan Cain points out in her book Quiet, introverts will generally prefer seeing more of fewer people. Cain, a self-professed introvert, says she spends 80 percent of her free time with just 10 percent of the people she knows. That means it’s important for her to regularly reach out and give a select number of old friends a call or invite them out for a drink.

Being grateful can help you beat stress.

In the previous blinks, we’ve talked a lot about stress and how to overcome it. As we’ve seen, stress is inherently harmful. That’s why one of the simplest and most effective ways of getting it out of your system is to stay positive.

That means learning to be genuinely grateful for the things that are going well. Take Kaye Foster-Cheek, a senior executive at the Boston Consulting Group. She’s found that making time to experience gratitude has boosted her well-being significantly. So it’s the first thing she does when she wakes up. Rather than jumping out of bed, she takes a moment to reflect on how grateful she feels to simply be lying there with a new day ahead of her.

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What is Overworked and Overwhelmed about?

Overworked and Overwhelmed (2014) shines a light on work-related stress and outlines what you can do to fight it. Packed full of simple yet effective stress-relieving strategies that you can start putting into practice today, this is a survival guide tailor-made to today’s fast-paced corporate world.

Overworked and Overwhelmed Review

Overworked and Overwhelmed (2014) by Scott Eblin is an essential read for anyone struggling with the daily pressures of work and life. Here's why this book is worth your time:

It offers practical strategies and actionable advice to help you navigate the challenges of a busy, fast-paced world.
By combining real-life stories with research-backed insights, the book provides a comprehensive understanding of the issues and offers effective solutions.
The author's engaging storytelling keeps you hooked, ensuring that the book is both informative and entertaining.

Best quote from Overworked and Overwhelmed

Everybody has a plan until they get hit. – Heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson

—Scott Eblin

Who should read Overworked and Overwhelmed?

Executives and managers
Anyone feeling stressed and overworked
Coaches and work psychologists

About the Author

Scott Eblin is a cofounder of the Eblin Group, a company that specializes in helping leading executives excel at their jobs, as well as a highly sought-after coach and motivational speaker. He is also the author of The Next Level, a well-received insider’s guide to business success.

Categories with Overworked and Overwhelmed

Productivity Mindfulness & Happiness

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