The busy part

Yesterday was productive and yet still bad.

Like I said, I shouldn't have got too optimistic about making that one deadline on the doomed project, because however annoying the previous phase was, it wasn't really my problem. Last week some time I was given an assignment, compiling a list of certain things in the document, as part of the current phase. I said I'd get started on it, but didn't; I got distracted by easy-and-quick-but-less-important minutiae on this project, I got distracted by another project, etc. Tuesday H. asked for a status update on several things, including the list. Mentally, I said "oh shit, I probably should have started that", and in my e-mail reply I said I could "have it done by tomorrow". As it turns out, that estimate was off, I finished a list about two hours after I got to work yesterday, but I'd say I was close enough and no one complained. Of course, a list is just the first step; after that I or someone has to fix numerous problems I found while compiling the list, and find a document corresponding to each item on the list.

But my supervisor and I agree that I should be working on the more immediate deadline, the amendatory instructions and getting the document itself closer to being a publishable rule, than on the list. So we persuaded H. of that. The backup tech writer, who's doing part of this, had already got it set up on Wednesday. Before I could get started on it, though, I had to catch up on other stuff for the doomed project. Changes suggested by e-mail that were too vague or I had to run by someone else or I just hadn't got around to them, etc. A number of e-mails were required there and some instructions were more complicated than others. It was all necessary and productive, but based on e-mail timestamps it kept me busy until 2:26 p.m. yesterday. After that I was able to work on the amendatory instructions for about an hour, when they asked me to do something as a result of a meeting that had happened without me, and that took a while to figure out.

Put it all together and I had only about three hours to work uninterrupted on the part I was actually supposed to be working on. And that's at the end of the day, after my eyes are tired of staring at a computer screen and my brain is so tired of ambiguously-phrased instructions that I've stopped using pronouns. All told I'd say I got about half as much done on the amendatory instructions as I should have if we want to make the "official" deadline for this phase. So today I'd have to work half again as hard as the schedule calls for just to get back on track. And today has also had a few changes introduced late, and e-mail requests to respond to, and of course it's a quiet Friday and I'm writing all this, do you think I'm getting caught up?