Talk to your manager about being pulled in too many directions. That is priority #1. Maybe, you need your job priorities redefined. Maybe, you need someone to manage the requests on your time. I know I've been in a similar situation. "Rob, I need a little something-something to do XYZ." A month later and someone says in staff meeting "Rob owns the XYZ-ABCDRGFLadsdlkfEFLKJW process" and it's consuming 40% of my time and my manager has no idea where my time is going.

This is especially important if you're a contractor, as I am. Your manager is (probably) paying for you to work on a specific project. If, as in my case, your project is cancelled / rescheduled, your contract will be shortened (as mine was), even if you're reducing cycletime by at least 50% in every other part of the process (as I have done).

Also, you need to have some time to regroup and refactor your code. Otherwise, you will be unable to deal with all the one-offs.

Also, you need your customers (cause, that's what they all are) to follow process and give you usable specs. I made that mistake and am now in the position of handing over code that is, in my words, "completely unreadable and unmaintable, even by me". Scopecreep is a horrible beast.

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