As of 13 August 2026, AI can explain your workload to your manager.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

   A chat interface, no skill needed, and roughly 15 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your calendar, task manager and recent work emails, then list each active task with its deadline, current status, estimated remaining work and any dependency.
   2. Separate work that is committed, urgent, blocked or lower priority, and note any regular meetings or fixed duties that reduce your available time.
   3. Write down the specific decision or support you want from your manager, such as agreeing priorities, moving a deadline or assigning additional help.
   4. Paste the collected facts into the prompt, choose whether you need an email, Teams message or meeting talking points, and generate the draft.
   5. Compare every task, date, status and consequence in the draft with your calendar, task list and emails, then remove any wording that overstates the position.
   6. Send the final message or use the talking points in the meeting, keeping the agreed priorities and actions in writing afterwards.

   Prompt

   Help me explain my current workload to my manager in a factual, calm and constructive way. Use only the information I provide and invent nothing.
   
   My role: [role]
   My current tasks and projects:
   [task or project 1, including status and deadline]
   [task or project 2, including status and deadline]
   [add more if needed]
   
   My available working time and regular commitments: [details]
   Work that has increased, changed or been added recently: [details]
   Dependencies, blockers or decisions I am waiting for: [details]
   Risks if the workload stays unchanged: [details]
   What I want from my manager: [for example, priorities, a deadline change, extra resource or a decision]
   Preferred format: [email, Teams message, meeting notes or talking points]
   
   Produce:
   1. A short summary of the workload.
   2. A prioritised list of the work, separating urgent work from important work.
   3. A draft message or talking points in plain British English.
   4. Three specific options I can ask my manager to agree, based only on the facts above.
   5. A list of any claims or assumptions I must check before sending.
   Do not exaggerate my workload, blame colleagues or describe anything as urgent unless I have said it is urgent.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.