Busy to the point of distraction

One of the things I’ve had to learn while working for my current employer is the ability to manage working on multiple projects concurrently. It’s not quite the same as multitasking per se, in that I’m not normally working on multiple things simultaneously (for instance, plotting data for one report while writing a paper on another topic). Rather, I mean the challenge of getting things done for different projects when faced with overlapping deadlines, and managing the day-to-day chaos while still meeting longer-term goals.

While I think I’ve gotten better at this time as goes on, I think that in these last few weeks, I’ve begun to hit a wall. There are too many projects and tasks, and I just don’t find myself with enough time to meet them all. Or, worse still, even when I do find myself with some time to work on them, I’m a little bit paralyzed by the problem of what to tackle first. Everything’s relatively important, so I find myself hopping back and forth between one activity and another. This is not a good way to get a lot done--I spend too much time trying to remember “where did I leave off,” which doesn’t necessarily leave a lot of time to make forward progress.

I think the time has come where it will be absolutely crucial to begin to say “no” to the assignment of any more work, at least until I can get some of these items off my to-do list.