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Situations like this are not difficult simply because there is a lot to do. It also matters whether you have some say in how you deal with that workload, or whether the volume of work, the order of tasks and the timing are largely decided for you. Sometimes the main problem is not the amount of work itself, but the fact that you cannot decide what should be left undone when there is too much of it.
The amount of control people have over their work has therefore been an important topic in occupational psychology for decades. Germany’s Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the BAuA, also treats it as an important resource in the design of healthy work. Data from the 2024 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey, which included more than twenty thousand employees, show clear differences. Among people who frequently had influence over the amount of work they were expected to do, thirty-three per cent reported at least three psychosomatic complaints. Among those with little or no influence, the figure was forty-five per cent. These complaints included tiredness, fatigue and exhaustion.
That does not explain the relationship on its own. But the figures fit a pattern that repeatedly appears in occupational health research: high demands are harder to manage when people have little influence over how they respond to them.
The same workload can feel very different
Two working days can look almost identical on paper. On both days, six tasks are waiting and the same result is expected by the evening.
On the first day, you can decide where to start. You move a less important task to tomorrow, set aside an hour for focused work and leave a minor detail until the next morning.
On the second day, the workload is similar. But several people are setting priorities at the same time. One deadline cannot be changed, another urgent task appears, and you are not allowed to decide what should be postponed to make room for it.
The amount of work is similar. The room to manoeuvre is not.
One of the best-known models in occupational psychology, Robert Karasek’s Job Demand-Control Model, looks at exactly this interaction. In simple terms, it suggests that high demands can become particularly stressful when they are combined with little decision-making authority or control over the work itself. Later research has expanded and refined the model considerably, but the broader relationship between low job control and psychological strain also appears in large research reviews.
Demanding work is not necessarily a problem. A difficult task can even be motivating when you are able to decide how to approach it.
It becomes more difficult when someone is held responsible for an outcome but has very little influence over the conditions under which that outcome is supposed to be achieved.
Control often shows up in small decisions
When people hear the word autonomy, they often think of working from home or flexible hours. In everyday working life, it often shows up in much smaller decisions.
Can I decide the order in which I complete my tasks? Can I postpone something less important when an urgent request comes in? Is only the result fixed, or is every step of the process prescribed as well? Can I question a deadline if it is unrealistic under the current circumstances?
When the workload is high, there needs to be some room for adjustment somewhere. That could mean changing priorities, allowing more time, bringing in support, changing expectations or using a different approach.
If none of those options are available, a person is expected to solve a problem while having very little influence over the conditions creating it.
Complete freedom is not particularly helpful either if no one has made clear what is actually expected. Research on role ambiguity also shows links with psychological strain. A clear goal and some freedom in how to reach it can therefore work well together. The same is true of clear responsibilities combined with the authority to make decisions within them.
What can you do when your room to manoeuvre is limited?
Not every difficult work situation can be solved through individual behaviour. If a team is permanently understaffed, unrealistic workloads are expected or decisions are deliberately centralised, work design remains a responsibility of management and the organisation.
Still, it can be worth looking more closely at where there is genuinely no influence and where the limits have simply never been discussed.
A useful place to start is by making competing priorities visible. If three tasks are all described as urgent but only two can realistically be completed, the first reaction is often to work faster, shorten the lunch break or stay later.
A clearer question may be more useful:
“What needs to be finished first?”
Or more specifically:
“By Thursday, I can either complete the report or finish the presentation. If both are needed by then, something else will have to change. Which one takes priority?”
This makes it clear that the employee cannot be expected to solve two conflicting urgent demands simply by working harder.
It is also worth looking closely at rules and routines. Some processes have been followed in the same way for years even though no one is quite sure why. Some deadlines are treated as fixed simply because nobody has ever questioned them.
A useful question can be:
What is actually fixed here, and what am I free to decide?
Perhaps only the final result is fixed. Perhaps only the deadline. Maybe the method can be changed. Maybe another task can wait.
And sometimes the answer really is: almost nothing.
When responsibility and influence no longer match
Work becomes particularly difficult when responsibility is handed over without the influence needed to carry it.
Two managers set different priorities. A project is expected to meet its deadline even though important information is missing. A task is delegated, but the decisions required to complete it can only be made elsewhere.
In everyday working life, contradictions like these are often absorbed through additional personal effort. People work longer, try to do several things at once or find some temporary workaround.
That can work for a while. But if the result is delivered anyway, the underlying problem often remains invisible.
If two managers set conflicting priorities, it is not automatically the employee’s responsibility to resolve that conflict by working more hours. If resources are missing, that can be said clearly. And if a decision requires information or authority that someone does not have, the decision can be passed back to the person who does.
Not every responsibility that is left hanging has to be picked up simply because someone could somehow manage to carry it.
When more influence really helps
There are situations in which the workload is simply too high. More autonomy does not solve chronic understaffing, and it cannot turn twelve hours of work into an eight-hour day.
But workload alone does not explain everything.
The same task can be much easier to manage when it is clear how important it is, what can wait and which parts of the process can be organised independently.
A useful question is therefore:
Do I have enough influence over the things I am being held responsible for?
If the answer is consistently no, becoming even more efficient is unlikely to solve the problem.
Sometimes the workload really does need to be reduced.
Sometimes what is missing is clarity about what you are actually allowed to decide.
A short exercise: Where do I actually have room to act?
Think of three situations from the past working week that felt difficult. Perhaps an urgent task came in unexpectedly, two things were due at the same time or you felt you had very little say in how a project was handled.
For each situation, divide a sheet of paper into three sections:
Fixed – Influencable – My decision
Under “Fixed”, write down only what is genuinely outside your control. This might be a confirmed client meeting or a decision that has already been made.
Under “My decision”, write down the things you do not need anyone else’s approval for. Perhaps you can choose the order of your work, your approach or when you complete a particular part of the task.
The middle section is often the most useful. Under “Influencable”, note anything you cannot decide on your own but could raise, discuss or propose changing. A priority could be clarified. A deadline could be discussed. Support could be requested. A different approach could be suggested.
Then choose one item from this middle section and turn it into a specific question.
Instead of:
“I have too much to do.”
you might ask:
“Which task should wait if this needs to be finished today?”
Instead of:
“I cannot decide anything on this project.”
you might ask:
“Which decisions can I make independently within the agreed goal?”
If the middle section ends up almost empty, that tells you something too. The problem may not be that you are failing to use the freedom available to you. There may simply be very little freedom available.
Sources
Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) (2026). Arbeitswelt im Wandel 2026 – Handlungsspielraum am Arbeitsplatz: eine wichtige Ressource. Based on data from the BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey 2024.
BIBB / Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (2024). BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey 2024. Survey of 20,012 employees on working conditions, work design and health.
Karasek, R. A. (1979). Job Demands, Job Decision Latitude, and Mental Strain: Implications for Job Redesign. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(2), 285–308.
Harvey, S. B., Modini, M., Joyce, S. et al. (2017). Can work make you mentally ill? A systematic meta-review of work-related risk factors for common mental health problems. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 74(4), 301–310. DOI: 10.1136/oemed-2016-104015.
de Lange, A. H. et al. (2009). A hard day’s night: a longitudinal study on the relationships among job demands and job control, sleep quality and fatigue. Journal of Sleep Research, 18(3), 374–383.
Inoue, A. et al. (2021). Role ambiguity as an amplifier of the association between job stressors and workers’ psychological ill-being: Evidence from an occupational survey in Japan. Journal of Occupational Health.
