Work feels harder than ever—and there’s a reason for that.
If you’re struggling to get things done because too many people are involved, emotions are running high, or you’re drowning in an endless task list… congratulations! You’re experiencing work intensification—a growing problem we don’t talk about nearly enough.
Researchers in Europe have been studying this trend for years and generally agree it comes down to three forces happening at once:
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Too much work: Simply too many tasks in too little time. This is universal—whether it’s too many meetings on your calendar or too many pallets to load in an hour.
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Too much interdependence: Work increasingly requires too many people to approve or coordinate on a single task. Remember when Jamie Dimon complained about needing 14 committees for one decision? That’s the problem.
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Too much emotional strain: Workplaces have become more emotionally charged. For example, since COVID-19, frontline workers have faced more rudeness and aggression.
To see how this is affecting workers, consulting firm Anthrome Insight partnered with organizational psychologist Patrick Hyland in April 2025. They surveyed 1,000 workers from entry-level to C-suite across five industries. The findings were stark:
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25% said they always or often felt overwhelmed.
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50% felt overwhelmed at least some of the time.
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62% reported task overload.
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Over a quarter struggled with bureaucracy and unclear priorities.
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Almost a third were dealing with angry coworkers, bosses, or customers.
The damage caused by work intensification
For employees, work intensification drives burnout and harms mental health. It may even be contributing to record-high turnover in CEO and CFO roles.
It also hurts productivity. That may sound counterintuitive: more tasks should mean more output, right?
But that assumption falls apart in practice. First, many tasks are unnecessary. We now spend up to 60% of our time on “work about work”—meetings, coordination, communication about what we should be doing. That’s time lost to busywork instead of meaningful productivity.
When priorities collapse, productivity plummets. As the saying goes, when everything’s important, nothing is. Humans can only juggle so much. We even design phone numbers to be seven digits long because our brains struggle with longer lists. If you have 14 equally urgent priorities, you’ll forget or mishandle something.
The other two drivers—excess interdependence and emotional strain—make things worse. No organization ever became more productive by making its processes more complicated.
And the idea that emotional drama at work spurs passion or creativity? That’s a myth. Yelling and conflict eat up mental bandwidth. Employees ruminate on negative encounters, harming sleep, not just their own but even their partners’ sleep, as research shows. Far from motivating people, these emotional disruptions derail effective work.
What can we do about it?
Work intensification is a big challenge, but there are real strategies to fight back.
At an individual level, you can:
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Have candid conversations with your manager about workload and priorities.
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Politely opt out of unnecessary or overly complex processes when you can.
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Set boundaries around emotional conflicts—don’t volunteer to mediate every argument.
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Encourage heated discussions to move “offline” rather than making meetings unproductive.
At a team level, you can:
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Hold regular, clear discussions about roles, responsibilities, and workloads.
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Make time for prioritization. This is good “work about work” because it prevents overload.
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Define what you won’t do—the essence of strategy is knowing what to skip.
At an organizational level, the right mindset shift is key:
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Not all work is good work.
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Not everyone needs to be involved in everything.
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Not everything has to be an emotional drama.
We’re held back by harmful myths: that overwork is virtuous, that collaboration means everyone in the room at once, or that emotional intensity drives results. In reality, the opposite behaviors support sustainable, effective work.
Research shows that simply recognizing and addressing the three drivers of work intensification—excess tasks, excess interdependence, and excess emotional strain—makes you 119% more likely to feel highly effective. In other words, understanding how work breaks down and actively fighting back leads to real, measurable progress.
