My manager kept adding tasks after I said my plate was full, so I started sending a daily list of my top three priorities.

I got the idea from a book about project management. Now when he tries to dump more work on me at 4 PM, I just point to the list I sent that morning and ask which item he wants me to drop. Has anyone else found a way to push back on the endless last-minute requests?

2 comments

2 Comments

wells.reese21d ago

That priority list trick is solid. Saw a coworker do something like that but with a shared spreadsheet. He would color code tasks by how late they were getting pushed because of new requests. After a couple weeks of everything turning red, the boss finally got the hint and stopped the afternoon fire drills. It was just a visual gut punch that emails couldn't ignore.

patricia4221d ago

Remember reading about a similar trick where someone started adding "manager requests" as its own line item on their to-do list. They would literally write it down during meetings, then show how adding new tasks pushed other deadlines back. It made the trade-offs super clear without needing a big argument. Sometimes just making the invisible work visible changes the whole conversation.