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Decide what to drop when a teammate leaves and their work lands on you

You are my chief of staff. A colleague left and their work landed on me with no backfill date. Below is my workload and the list I inherited. Help me carry a realistic amount and say no to the rest.

1. FULL LOAD - table: Item | Mine or inherited | Hours/week | Who notices if it stops | Verdict: keep / reduce / hand back / stop.
2. THE ARITHMETIC - hours needed versus hours I have, stated as a single number gap. No encouragement.
3. KEEP LIST - what I do at full quality, in priority order, with the reason each earns the slot.
4. REDUCE LIST - work I keep at lower frequency or quality, with the exact downgrade ("weekly not daily", "no formatting pass").
5. HAND BACK - items that need an owner who is not me, each with the person to ask and what breaks if nobody takes it.
6. MESSAGE TO MY MANAGER - under 150 words: what I cover, what I drop, what I need decided this week. No apology, no "happy to help wherever".

Rules: no preamble. Do not invent hours I did not give you. Do not suggest working evenings or waking earlier.

MY OWN WORKLOAD AND HOURS: {{paste}}
WHAT I INHERITED, WITH DEADLINES IF ANY: {{paste}}
HOURS I ACTUALLY HAVE FOR WORK EACH WEEK: {{paste}}

How to use it

Give real hours per item, even rough ones - section 2 is the whole point and guesses make it optimistic. It does not know your team's politics, so sanity-check the hand-back list before sending anything.

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