The modern workplace is set up with so many ways to foster collaboration: meetings and brainstorming sessions, Zooms, email, instant messaging.

And aspects of this are great, but we're doing more collaborative work than ever before, and the problem is it's overloading us.

From launching a new product to creating a vaccine, almost every endeavor we do at work requires working with others towards a common goal.

But collaborative work has risen 50 percent over the past decade. It's now taking up to 85 percent of most people's workweeks. And those numbers from my research were pre-pandemic.

We’re just too eager to jump in to collaborations that burn up our time and that might actually run better without 20 people in the fray.

There are many triggers that spark our desire to say yes so often. But today I want to focus on the top three: the desire to help others, the need for accomplishment, and fear.

And the desire to help others is a positive, constructive thing and an important factor in success. But it's also one of the most significant drivers of overload. The more you're helpful, the more people ask for your help.

The problem is that you get so bogged down in helping that it prevents you from meeting your own goals. And over time you become a bottleneck, slowing others down.

The second trigger's the need for accomplishment. The issue is that the cycle can get addictive. It leads you to solve more and more small problems for other people and avoid the bigger, thornier ones critical to your own success.

The third trigger is fear. The fear of missing out on better projects, better colleagues, better opportunities, can become a persistent, nagging problem that never lets you rest.

The fear of losing control is just as bad. It makes you reluctant to delegate or connect the people around you, sentencing you to a life of doing everything yourself.

And the fear of what others will say is powerful, too. Your knee-jerk response becomes to say yes early and often, so everyone can see how responsive you are.

Unfortunately, these fears drive unproductive choices and lead us into burnout today. Chances are you recognize yourself in one or more of these triggers. And since I gave you three triggers, how about three ways to deal with them?

Number one, learn to get comfortable saying no. If you get a request from a boss or a colleague, chances are they have no idea what obligations you're juggling.

Be clear about what projects or deadlines you have ahead. Ask them to help you prioritize. Remember that your answer doesn't have to be a binary yes or no.

And if you just don't have the bandwidth, ask the person if there's a different way to accomplish their goals. At the end of the day, every yes means saying no to something else. Save your yeses for when they really matter to you.

Number two, remember, you can delegate. Draw a line between tasks that really do require you and lower-risk ones that you can delegate without concern.

Look for moments when you can give partial direction, empower someone and then step out of the way. And celebrate others’ wins.

I’ve found that the most efficient collaborators get their sense of worth not from always giving input and being involved but from developing others and positioning them to grow, too.

Number three, be intentional in crafting your work life. High performers are strategic. They think about their priorities not only for the week ahead but on a two-to-three-month time horizon too.

So, when a collaboration su***ces, make sure you're not *** an emotional decision based on a false belief. Ask yourself, how does it align with my goals? And what are the upsides of the outcome?

Try to maximize those collaborations where you want to do the work, it contributes to your goals and you're the best person to do it. Remember, you're the only one who knows all your goals and obligations and that you often have more choice than you think.