Do you ever have days/weeks/years like that? Where EVERYTHING anyone wants done is a priority. Needs doing yesterday. Using angel dust. And dodo feathers.
What I especially like is when each person stresses to you the importance of their own steaming pile over that of the others who have lined up to fill you desk. It is so cute. The way the slow their voice down and take a solemn tone – to make sure you fully grasp the magnitude of their ego.
How do you handle this? How do you do a good job on more work that you can do in less time than it needs? Where no one will except “no”, “I’m sorry” or ‘expletive-deleted’.
For me is a combination of approaches:
Firstly, I drink heavily. Secondly, I try to wallow in self pity for at least 15% of the time available. Thirdly, I write a list of priority, based on some careful criteria:
- How big the provider of work’s corporate cojones are;
- How psychotic they are likely to get if their work not done;
- Who wouldn’t notice if something was done half-cooked;
- Who will be fooled by me sending them something I have sent them previously and bares a passing resemblance to what they have asked for today;
- Who I might have a grudging respect for, and who I am more than happy to ruin the day of; and
- What I might actually enjoy doing.
And then I crack on. I stick my head in the sand, yank out my ethernet cable, and wander around making tea and telling everyone how busy and grumpy I am in the hope it will deter any others from burying me further.
Does it work? Well, in an impossible situation you can only lose – what matters is how much of a battering you take in the process. The above approach is not textbook – you’ll not find Peter Drucker pimping it around his sell-out shows – but for punters like you and me, its all we can hope for.
