Feeling out of my depth in consulting with too many projects

[Iwannachangerealbad]

I have been in my current consulting role for 18 months. It started off ok but this past few weeks everything has started to kick off project wise and I feel out of my depth. I work in a field that is pretty far reaching so I know a bit about everything but not in depth. You’re only as good as your last project and I feel everyone is wanting an answer now with no research (which is hard as regulation keeps changing). I’m supposed to be going on holiday next week but I have deliverables to do. There is no back up as there are only two of us with the countries experience plus we are both working in different projects in different clients systems. My colleague however is working on one project with one client whereas I have 9 projects and counting. My boss can’t help as his country experience is different. I’m keen to get a job that’s in my wheelhouse so I can do it in my sleep while I’m heading to retire but can’t afford to do so as getting my kids through college. As everyone knows it’s tough getting a new job especially at my age.

You have to be clear you are on leave and there is nobody to cover so nothing will happen whilst you are off. Any urgent question should be asked before xxx

Have you come across the priority matrix?

you can update it as often as you want eg hourly, daily, weekly.

basically divide a document/piece of a4 into quarters.

then you have
important
urgent
not important
not urgent

So top left becomes Important not urgent
top right is important and urgent
bottom left is urgent not important
bottom right is neither important or urgent.

and manage what you do this way.