Good at problems, bad at projects - Help!

Dear Bob ...I've worked in IT support roles in the past 7 years that have all been for comparatively small companies -- generally between 50-250 employees.  In all of these jobs, I have been one of two or three IT personnel, required to address everything from helpdesk to 2nd/3rd level support, server installation and maintenance, backups, etc.In my current job, I work for a large Government institution, bu

Follow @ITCatalysts Dear Bob ...

I've worked in IT support roles in the past 7 years that have all been for comparatively small companies -- generally between 50-250 employees.  In all of these jobs, I have been one of two or three IT personnel, required to address everything from helpdesk to 2nd/3rd level support, server installation and maintenance, backups, etc.

In my current job, I work for a large Government institution, but even here I work at a small outpost with only around 150 employees.

As a result, I've developed excellent skills at addressing any and all problems that crop up in a short period of time.

The problem is that I now find I work best under pressure and in short, concentrated bursts.  If you need something done in an hour, half a day, or even a week, I'm onto it and can generate a solution quickly.

Crisis situation?  No problem -- I can focus on relevant priorities and get them sorted out pronto.

On the other hand, if you need me to work on a single project with a deadline that is months away, or grind away at resolving non-urgent helpdesk jobs, I struggle.  I lose focus and search for other, more interesting problems to fix while dealing with these more "trivial" issues.  (Of course, once these things *become* urgent, I jump on them and fix them straight away...)

What can I do to improve my focus and consistency?  If you were my manager, what would you do to keep me on track?

- Born to fight fires

Dear Firefighter ...

I'm going to delete this as a comment and instead use it as question. With this answer:

First, congratulations on recognizing the personal part of this issue. Many IT professionals in similar circumstances externalize everything, and don't recognize that their attitude is part of the challenge.

But not all of it, and you can exploit your attitude to your advantage. First, the other stuff - what your manager needs to do. That's to give you scheduled time to work on projects or other long-term assignments. While asking employees to balance their time between Help Desk calls and project work might sound reasonable, it's completely unreasonable when you're the one being asked instead of the one doing the asking.

It's a simple matter of how priorities are set. Help Desk work is driven by what's not working. Project work is driven by approaching deadlines. The math required to decide when a project deadline is close enough to be a higher priority than an outage isn't easily calculated (and in fact, it's undefinable, because a good project plan assigns task duration based on the assumption that you're working on the tasks beginning on the start date).

Short version: Help Desk work always wins, because it's always more urgent.