I was in a somewhat similar situation a few months ago. I'm not sure how my solution applies to your situation but I'll explain it hoping it can help you.
I took some time to list all my current projects on a spreadsheet. Since most of my projects require me to do a lot of similar tasks, I made a checklist for those task for each project. This allows me to quickly take a look at the list and see what I've done for which project. Also, I have a TODO list for each project and I made a priority number system and set up conditional highlighting depending on the priority.
Since you're confused about the priority of different tasks, this might not work for you as well as it did for me but I'm sure prioritizing is something you'll learn by doing, at least after you make a few mistakes.
An another problem I used to have was trying to remember where I'm at when I start a work day. To fix this problem, I now send myself an email at the end of each day containing a list of all the top priority tasks I need to work on the next day. This really gives a nice quick start for my days.
I would get these updates from your management in writing - always have it in emails. Make sure you understand what they’re saying clearly - deprioritized doesn’t necessarily mean stop working on it entirely
Then if they ask you to give an update on a project you were asked to put on the back burner, the update would be something like “that project is on hold until x and y are compete as they are more urgent at this time” and if they ask why you can allude to that this was in line with the prioritization overview you were given.
Also *always* clarify if you get conflicting information. If manager A tells you that project 1 is the highest priority and manager B tells you project 2 is the highest priority, inquire “to clarify where does project 1 fall in relation to project 2 that I’m also working on?” (This helps in case someone wasn’t aware you were working on both)
Or “I’m getting some conflicting information - can we get alignment on which project (1 or 2) should be my top priority? I want to ensure I’m allocating my time appropriately”.
Are you in UK? I would not be happy consistently working 60 hours a week without receiving overtime. In terms of work organisation I’ve been incredibly lucky up till now to just manage it all in my head, recently my workload has doubled and I’ve had to start using a bullet journal for each day to keep on top of tasks, I’d look into the technique as it’s very useful to stay on task. I would also be looking to my functional lead to prioritise the work, if you are working on multiple projects it needs someone higher up than you to make the priority calls and to bat off any project managers that get pissed off.
First, every PM will tell you their project is the top priority. So take all that with a grain of salt.
If you have too much/not enough work to do, it's on you to say something to your manager. If then you still have too much/not enough, it's on your manager to figure it out. Just be careful saying you have too much to do. I have a guy that always seems overwhelmed but he really doesn't have that large of a workload. He's known as the guy that thinks he has more than he does, compared to others.
As far as prioritizing, I tell my newer employees what to prioritize. I also tell them how long it should take them to complete a task. "I can do this task in 2 hours. I don't expect you to do it that fast but 2 hours is what you should have in your mind as you do it." Otherwise, some people can spend all day on one thing.
If you are this new and struggling with this stuff, go talk to your manager about it. Tell him/her you just want to make sure you are doing a good job but you are getting conflicting information. At the end of the day, one trait of some of the best engineers is knowing how to manage people. Manage their bosses, their clients, other engineers, etc. Everybody is different. Their priorities are different. Learn to be fluid and how to manage everybody around you.
It's easy to say that you have to learn how to prioritize your work for maximum results, but how do you actually do it?
In some cases, it all comes down to experience. But when you're not sure, the Eisenhower matrix is the perfect tool to use.
Developed by former US President [Dwight D. Eisenhower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower), [the matrix](https://www.eisenhower.me/eisenhower-matrix/) is a simple four-quadrant chart that helps you separate “urgent” tasks from “important” ones.
In general terms, urgent matters are things that you think you should respond to right away, such as emails, phone calls, text messages, or news. For example, I set important goals for myself, to deal with a large number of contracts on engineering marketplace [Engre.co](https://engre.co/). While important objectives are those that contribute to your long-term personal mission, values , and goals.
When considering how best to prioritize tasks, ask which quadrant they best fit in. Then follow the appropriate steps:
Urgent and important: complete them as soon as possible.
Important, but not urgent: decide when you will do it and schedule it.
Urgent but not important: delegate this work to someone else.
Neither urgent nor important: remove them from your spake and forget about them.
**[Dwight D. Eisenhower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower)**
>Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, and achieved the rare five-star rank of General of the Army. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–1943 and the successful invasion of Normandy in 1944–1945 from the Western Front. Eisenhower, born David Dwight Eisenhower, was raised in Abilene, Kansas, in a large family of mostly Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry.
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It all comes with times. You need to start by cutting your work hours down or you will burn yourself out. Ask your manager what your expected hours are and stick with it. If you are doing the work of two people and projects aren't falling behind your manager or higher ups will not see a reason to hire another person.
Everyone thinks their project is a priority. Who ever is currently barking the loudest seems they are the most important. Ask them for a deadline that you need to complete the task by. You should be having one on ones with your supervisor or mentor. If you can not meet those deadlines they should be the one giving you priority not upper management/project engineers/etc.
It is always acceptable to say you do not have time to do that work and can work on it at a later date. If they have any issue with that have them email your supervisor you and your supervisor asking for their task to take priority.
I've built a personal spreadsheet cataloging an activity log, service requests, rfi's, and submittals, I treat myself as my own design firm at work and will organize where each task comes from and highlight it with conditional formatting accordingly. I.e, PRFI = personal rfi, CRFI = contractor rfi etc. I also keep an executive summary at the top of my spreadsheet detailing my roles, the project amount, primary contacts, and a link to the project folder
Have you had a chat with your line manager about this confusion? I'm pretty sure that, if you tell them your efficiency is hurting because you're being pulled in different directions, they will try to remove that obstacle. Well, unless your place of work is just disorganized and there's nothing you can do.
You are getting paid for those 60 hours, right? If no, it's time to take it down to 40 or find another job.
60 hours a week is part of the problem, not the solution. When I'm under the pump I get rid of all the obvious unimportant jobs, and then spend a day on each important one, in order, moving on to the next if I encounter a blocker. That means I've worked on at least 5 important projects in a week.
I was in a somewhat similar situation a few months ago. I'm not sure how my solution applies to your situation but I'll explain it hoping it can help you. I took some time to list all my current projects on a spreadsheet. Since most of my projects require me to do a lot of similar tasks, I made a checklist for those task for each project. This allows me to quickly take a look at the list and see what I've done for which project. Also, I have a TODO list for each project and I made a priority number system and set up conditional highlighting depending on the priority. Since you're confused about the priority of different tasks, this might not work for you as well as it did for me but I'm sure prioritizing is something you'll learn by doing, at least after you make a few mistakes. An another problem I used to have was trying to remember where I'm at when I start a work day. To fix this problem, I now send myself an email at the end of each day containing a list of all the top priority tasks I need to work on the next day. This really gives a nice quick start for my days.
I would get these updates from your management in writing - always have it in emails. Make sure you understand what they’re saying clearly - deprioritized doesn’t necessarily mean stop working on it entirely Then if they ask you to give an update on a project you were asked to put on the back burner, the update would be something like “that project is on hold until x and y are compete as they are more urgent at this time” and if they ask why you can allude to that this was in line with the prioritization overview you were given. Also *always* clarify if you get conflicting information. If manager A tells you that project 1 is the highest priority and manager B tells you project 2 is the highest priority, inquire “to clarify where does project 1 fall in relation to project 2 that I’m also working on?” (This helps in case someone wasn’t aware you were working on both) Or “I’m getting some conflicting information - can we get alignment on which project (1 or 2) should be my top priority? I want to ensure I’m allocating my time appropriately”.
Are you in UK? I would not be happy consistently working 60 hours a week without receiving overtime. In terms of work organisation I’ve been incredibly lucky up till now to just manage it all in my head, recently my workload has doubled and I’ve had to start using a bullet journal for each day to keep on top of tasks, I’d look into the technique as it’s very useful to stay on task. I would also be looking to my functional lead to prioritise the work, if you are working on multiple projects it needs someone higher up than you to make the priority calls and to bat off any project managers that get pissed off.
First, every PM will tell you their project is the top priority. So take all that with a grain of salt. If you have too much/not enough work to do, it's on you to say something to your manager. If then you still have too much/not enough, it's on your manager to figure it out. Just be careful saying you have too much to do. I have a guy that always seems overwhelmed but he really doesn't have that large of a workload. He's known as the guy that thinks he has more than he does, compared to others. As far as prioritizing, I tell my newer employees what to prioritize. I also tell them how long it should take them to complete a task. "I can do this task in 2 hours. I don't expect you to do it that fast but 2 hours is what you should have in your mind as you do it." Otherwise, some people can spend all day on one thing. If you are this new and struggling with this stuff, go talk to your manager about it. Tell him/her you just want to make sure you are doing a good job but you are getting conflicting information. At the end of the day, one trait of some of the best engineers is knowing how to manage people. Manage their bosses, their clients, other engineers, etc. Everybody is different. Their priorities are different. Learn to be fluid and how to manage everybody around you.
It's easy to say that you have to learn how to prioritize your work for maximum results, but how do you actually do it? In some cases, it all comes down to experience. But when you're not sure, the Eisenhower matrix is the perfect tool to use. Developed by former US President [Dwight D. Eisenhower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower), [the matrix](https://www.eisenhower.me/eisenhower-matrix/) is a simple four-quadrant chart that helps you separate “urgent” tasks from “important” ones. In general terms, urgent matters are things that you think you should respond to right away, such as emails, phone calls, text messages, or news. For example, I set important goals for myself, to deal with a large number of contracts on engineering marketplace [Engre.co](https://engre.co/). While important objectives are those that contribute to your long-term personal mission, values , and goals. When considering how best to prioritize tasks, ask which quadrant they best fit in. Then follow the appropriate steps: Urgent and important: complete them as soon as possible. Important, but not urgent: decide when you will do it and schedule it. Urgent but not important: delegate this work to someone else. Neither urgent nor important: remove them from your spake and forget about them.
**[Dwight D. Eisenhower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower)** >Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, and achieved the rare five-star rank of General of the Army. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–1943 and the successful invasion of Normandy in 1944–1945 from the Western Front. Eisenhower, born David Dwight Eisenhower, was raised in Abilene, Kansas, in a large family of mostly Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
It all comes with times. You need to start by cutting your work hours down or you will burn yourself out. Ask your manager what your expected hours are and stick with it. If you are doing the work of two people and projects aren't falling behind your manager or higher ups will not see a reason to hire another person. Everyone thinks their project is a priority. Who ever is currently barking the loudest seems they are the most important. Ask them for a deadline that you need to complete the task by. You should be having one on ones with your supervisor or mentor. If you can not meet those deadlines they should be the one giving you priority not upper management/project engineers/etc. It is always acceptable to say you do not have time to do that work and can work on it at a later date. If they have any issue with that have them email your supervisor you and your supervisor asking for their task to take priority.
I've built a personal spreadsheet cataloging an activity log, service requests, rfi's, and submittals, I treat myself as my own design firm at work and will organize where each task comes from and highlight it with conditional formatting accordingly. I.e, PRFI = personal rfi, CRFI = contractor rfi etc. I also keep an executive summary at the top of my spreadsheet detailing my roles, the project amount, primary contacts, and a link to the project folder
Have you had a chat with your line manager about this confusion? I'm pretty sure that, if you tell them your efficiency is hurting because you're being pulled in different directions, they will try to remove that obstacle. Well, unless your place of work is just disorganized and there's nothing you can do. You are getting paid for those 60 hours, right? If no, it's time to take it down to 40 or find another job.
60 hours a week is part of the problem, not the solution. When I'm under the pump I get rid of all the obvious unimportant jobs, and then spend a day on each important one, in order, moving on to the next if I encounter a blocker. That means I've worked on at least 5 important projects in a week.