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[quote=Anonymous]I had a job like this. The key things is communication.

I had a weekly meeting with my boss, and I would present him with a list of the tasks on my plate. I would focus on stuff with due dates this week or next week, or big looming projects, and I would put estimated level of effort, in hours next to it:

Task A - Half a day
Task B - Two days
Task C - One day
Task D - One day
Big Project E to stay on our timeline - Two days

And I would make him pick. What do you want me to do this week? I've got five days.

Let's say he says Tasks A, C, and D, (in that order) and whatever time's left on Project E.

Then I'd say, okay, I'll let Larlo know that Task B is not happening this week. This will also make us half a day behind on project E, which means Benchmark F is probably going to slip a day or two.

Then, later in the week, if someone walks up to you with Surprise Urgent Task X, you can immediately go to your boss and say, I've gotten a request from Larla to do Surprise Urgent Task X, it will take one day. If I do this, project E is likely to slip another week, or I can push Task D to next week.

My attitude remained calm, firm ("is there anyway to get them all done?" "unfortunately no"), clear, helpful, and flexible - I was happy to take on any task, but there are only so many days in the week. This moves the decisions and issues where they belong - with management. Remember - if more of these projects are critical than can be effectively done by you, they can hire another person. They always have that options. If they're choosing not to, then those tasks are not actually critical. [/quote]

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