Unfinished tasks foster rumination and impair sleeping—Particularly if leaders have high performance expectations.

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between time pressure and unfinished tasks as work stressors on employee well-being. Relatively little is known about the effect of unfinished tasks on well-being. Specifically, excluding the impact of time pressure, we examined whether the feeling of not having finished the week's tasks fosters perseverative cognitions and impairs sleep. Additionally, we proposed that leader performance expectations moderate these relationships. In more detail, we expected the detrimental effect of unfinished tasks on both rumination and sleep would be enhanced if leader expectations were perceived to be high. In total, 89 employees filled out online diary surveys both before and after the weekend over a 5-week period. Multilevel growth modeling revealed that time pressure and unfinished tasks impacted rumination and sleep on the weekend. Further, our results supported our hypothesis that unfinished tasks explain unique variance in the dependent variables above and beyond the influence of time pressure. Moreover, we found the relationship between unfinished tasks and both rumination and sleep was moderated by leader performance expectations. Our results emphasize the importance of unfinished tasks as a stressor and highlight that leadership, specifically in the form of performance expectations, contributes significantly to the strength of this relationship.

The Role of Trait and State Perfectionism in Psychological Detachment From Daily Job Demands

“…Conceivably, the adverse effects of role ambiguity might result in stronger negative affective states during work time or directly after work but might be less salient before bedtime. By contrast, in accordance with the Zeigarnik effect, unfinished tasks might trigger work‐related rumination (Berset, Elfering, Lüthy, Lüthi, & Semmer, ; Syrek & Antoni, ) and hence maintain a state of high negative activation or tense arousal and irritation—consequently impairing recovery processes. This finding contributes to the recently suggested concept of the “recovery paradox” (Sonnentag, ).…”

Feeling interrupted—Being responsive: How online messages relate to affect at work

“…Second, when being online and after having been interrupted by an online message, a high responsiveness should be encouraged. Because leaving tasks unfinished can have undesirable consequences (Syrek & Antoni, ; Zeigarnik, ), it seems particularly important that employees do not only read incoming online messages, but that they decide quickly if an answer is needed, how they will respond to each specific message, and actually prepare the answer. Immediately focusing on incoming e‐mails, however, postpones work on other tasks, potentially leading to switching costs with respect to other duties.…”

When do you procrastinate? Sleep quality and social sleep lag jointly predict self‐regulatory failure at work

“…Whereas our study was focused on how sleep quality is related to procrastination the following workday, procrastination at work, in turn, might diminish employees' subsequent sleep. Postponing the completion of activities at work may result in unfinished tasks weighing heavily on one's mind during off‐job time, potentially threatening recovery during non‐work activities (Sonnentag & Fritz, ) as well as one's sleep (Syrek & Antoni, ). Additional analyses in our dataset showed that day‐specific procrastination at work was not a significant predictor of sleep quality the following night.…”