Too much to chew!

[Marasme]

work has gone crazy - deadlines every week, short time leads for big grants and colliding priorities (new management pushing on us being more aggressive with grant capture, whilst aiming big with NSS, and being surrogate parents to our doctoral students).

i have so much on right now that i find it paralysing. Crazy series of deadlines all the way to October, plus conferences on steroid.

i am fairly senior, and cannot drop the grant commitments or the phd students (noone to pick up). I could work through the conferences, but i m a keynote at both and need to prep talks.

One of my colleague suggested that i do things too well, and rather than aim for 99% quality , i should sim for 60%. This makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. But i probably dwell on stuff too much (e.g. i cannot write a keynote and slides in less than 2 days/nights).

what else?
(i do try to say no, and do say no quite often!)

No words of advice, just to say ‘Same’. I don't know if I am coming or going and the structure at my place is about to change and workloads are going up hugely. Daytime is furious peddling to get everything done, nighttime dream of getting out. By default, I probably do some things not as well as those with less on plate, I know I take way too long to get back to my PhD students, for one. I feel mega depressed because I have a number of books coming out in next few months, some nationally high profile things going on, all sorts of esteem and merit things, service to sector, and I just can't even get an interview for another job to get out of my place that is going down the tubes. That makes me think, why do I actually bother go do all this (beyond its intrinsic joys). Too old and female, I guess. Am seriously considering becoming one of those useless dodderers who clings on until I am pushed,

Snap! But I don't have time / energy to detail it! Argh!

Same, except I have started saying no to every single event involving travel. With the exception of vivas for people whose supervisors I like! Even one night away is too much now - I have too much to do and I am TIRED

Fellow feeling here. This is the burden of seniority which those young Twitter ECR warriors have no idea about, and wouldn't do anyway.

I find I just look at working out what I need to get through in a day, by prioritising deadlines.

But I feel endlessly guilty with equal parts of irritation eg at a former PhD student who I've tried to create work for but who doesn't help themselves; at a recently graduated PhD student who seems to think I'm still a supervisor in terms of reading drafts for publication... and so on.

It's too much, so I waste time in here ...