WFH has left your micromanaging boss clueless about how many minutes you actually spend drinking tea, eating lunch, or mulling in the loo during your workday. This has pushed your boss to use one of the least effective (read: useless) tools for time management, a.k.a timesheets, to watch over you. Here’s the hard truth. Timesheets do not make anyone feel good about themselves. The structure of this tool makes each and every minute of yours accountable to someone else, thus taking away your sense of control over your own time. To add to all of it, ineffective planning often creates a negative feedback loop where one feels they have not done enough (and let’s face it, we’ve all been victim to this inopportune situation!) and don’t we all know how that works out for our mental health? We always overestimate our ability and thus set goals according to it, which results in feeling like we have not done enough. This festers feelings of guilt, anxiety, worthlessness and helplessness, leading to the avoidance and resistance to complete our timesheets. Our suggestion is observe your ability to work for the entire week – do not judge yourself at the end of the day. Once you truly understand your working ability, set expectations or goals and work towards them. Remember, timesheets are not (and don’t have to be) your checklist, they are just meant to be mindful observers of your day! Nonetheless, if this continues to feel overwhelming, we’d recommend you bring it up with HR or your manager. Setting assertive boundaries is key!Timesheets! It should be a synonym for micromanaging. This stupid style of managing work has got us feeling all wired and under a lot of stress. How do we manage it better?
Timesheet Slave
Meet The Author
She believes emotional and mental health care are at the very core of us experiencing happiness in our life. Her qualifications include a Masters in Clinical Psychology and in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Priyanka enjoys working with young adults and understanding life as it changes with intrusions like the internet and the pandemic. Above everything else her true love is homemade chocolate cake.
Priyanka Varma, Psychologist