Dealing with stress during tough weeks 3

[milkshakelake]

I have a million projects due this week, I'm understaffed, and I can't finish everything. Clients are calling all the time with problems on site or asking for drawings. Is it possible to maintain peace while being like this?

For context, it's not always like this. Usually, I can send everything on time. I go home, work out, play some video games, and sleep restfully. It's just one of those weeks where everything is coming all at once.

I generally meditate to calm my mind down. But right now, I can't stop my mind from thinking about how I'm going to finish all this mass of work.

 

[IRstuff]

Haven't fully figured out how to fix that yet. Just trying to adjust my expectations currently and am often disappointed at my ability to do that.

This is why meticulous records are important. Hypothetically, you have records of how much time each assignee compared to your estimate; given that one should be able to come up with a 95% confidence schedule, given any assignee. In the boundary cases, you'd either meet schedule or be way ahead of schedule.

We used to have a similar situation at work, we seniors would bid a job, but we're too expensive ;-) so they assign the job to some junior engineer, who either took much longer, impacting a tight schedule, or they couldn't do it at all and we'd have to come back in and grossly overrun the already stretched budget.

Obviously, we never did what I preached above; we had one customer who'd laugh that we had never met a schedule slip we didn't like.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[ALK2415]

your surviveness in honesty
don't hold/work yourself beyond your capabilities
had some time with family will relieve your mind
ask help (hire) from other engineers for part-times job consultation

 

[milkshakelake]

@ALK2415 Yeah I'm definitely working beyond my abilities at the moment. It's dying down a bit, so things are looking up.

 

[ALK2415]

forget to mention having good companion will boost your performance level
simple gesture "from her/his side" will increase your strength and resilience (sometimes you need to buy-cash that support)
Also have time to play your favorite game