30.10.2025 | Articles
The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health launched the project From Overload to Essentials in the winter of 2023. A total of 189 members of ASIA responded to the study's online survey.
In knowledge work, work often overflows from its boundaries: there is too much work, it involves tasks that are inappropriate for one’s job description, and work and private life become intertwined. This strain makes it difficult to concentrate on the essentials.
Minna Toivanen has been researching working life phenomena such as time and time management, gender equality, and immigrants in working life and workplaces for more than 20 years. Toivanen works as a senior specialist at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. She has led several research projects, such as AikaJärjestys asiantuntijatyössä (‘TimeOrganisation in Knowledge Work’) and Yhteensattumia (‘Experiences of Serendipity’) funded by the Finnish Work Environment Fund.
In a survey conducted in the TimeOrganisation in Knowledge Work project, 12% of knowledge workers said that they have tasks that do not match their job description. 78% of respondents had encountered surprises and unpredictable tasks at work.
– The rush and unpredictability show no sign of diminishing; on the contrary, they are increasing. In teaching, for example, a lot of extra duties are piled up on teachers, who may not be able to focus on the essential parts of their job. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the boundaries between work and private life became even more blurred than before, Toivanen says.
These insights raised the idea to study the overflowing of knowledge work, to identify the needs and opportunities for limiting work, and to promote concentrating on the essentials at work.
– The Locating the Essential project is based on the fact that many knowledge workers feel that their work is cramped, fragmented and unclear: excessive workload, constant availability, and inappropriate tasks have emerged as key challenges in knowledge work, Toivanen concludes.
The Locating the Essential project was launched in winter 2023. The study included an e-form questionnaire, to which 189 ASIA members responded. In addition, two sets of interview data were used: interviews with health care managers and interviews with knowledge workers and managers (18 ASIA members, 38 in total).
Hectic and fragmented work can distract you from what’s essential and make you lose focus from the heart of the work. The interview data revealed four key dimensions which were not sufficiently implemented in the respondents’ work. The dimensions are related to the know-how and social reality of knowledge work: 1. immersion and going into details, 2. work development, 3. interaction, and 4. influence.
In the interviews, many knowledge workers pointed out that they were not able to immerse themselves in their tasks as intensely as they wanted to. Work was often done delayed or without being on top of things.
According to the respondents, development and building something new had disappeared from their work. One of the reasons behind this was that there was no time to attend training sessions.
A third dimension was the low level of interaction with employees and colleagues: there was no room for building things together and having transformative dialogues.
The fourth dimension was the lack of influence, which made it difficult to do the work and achieve the objectives.
– All these dimensions are important in knowledge work. If they are missing, the impact can be bigger than you might first think: the heart of the work is lost and knowledge is eroded.
If irrelevant tasks - such as reporting or administration that is not part of your job description or tasks that don’t really belong to anyone - start to pile up in your work, you run the risk of blurring the direction of your work and taking a strange detour.
Toivainen gives examples from everyday life: a teacher who, in addition to their job, also plays the role of a parent, or a university professor who has to repair the photocopier every day.
– This is referred to as an experience of inappropriateness, which means that your work consists of inappropriate tasks or that something essential is missing from your work. For example, a manager does not have time to meet with their employees or have performance reviews, because a large part of their working time is spent on other work than management.
– My starting point would be to talk to your manager first. Your manager cannot know about your situation unless you tell them. It’s important to discuss with the manager to find out whether the work could be organised or shared in another way.
"When work overflows, its core must be rediscovered," says Minna Toivanen, Senior Specialist at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. She uses the term essentialization to describe the process of clarifying the core of one's work.
Toivainen points out that when work starts to interfere with family life or leisure time, it is important to stop and think about what is causing it. It may be the result of your own behaviour: for example, you may be in the habit of checking your work emails in the evening. Your work may also be badly organised, so that you have to extend your working day if you want to get your work done on time.
– You can ask yourself: Why do I do my work in my spare time? Do I simply have too much work to do? Or is there something else behind it, such as the difficulty of limiting my work or the fear of giving up?
Work needs to be essentialised to keep the workload under control. The Institute of Occupational Health is working on a solution to this: a collaborative project between researchers and knowledge workers to develop a 5-step guideline for managing work boundaries is underway.
When you see the heart and the entirety of your work, it becomes more meaningful to you, your professional identity strengthens and you become more committed.
– Artificial intelligence can also make work easier. Many knowledge workers and managers are already using it. In the future, it can help you narrow down your work and focus on the essentials, Toivanen says.
Text by Heidi Salonen, communications manager at ASIA ry
Published on ASIA member magazine 3/2025
Institute of Occupational Health: Locating the Essential Webinar recording: Focusing on what truly matters by Minna Toivanen (in Finnish)