I find that the simplest way to avoid getting stuck on someone else's schedule is to get a ~month ahead of your expected productivity (even if that means sandba

I find that the simplest way to avoid getting stuck on someone else's schedule is to get a ~month ahead of your expected productivity (even if that means sandbagging estimates, or working extra, or accepting a bad performance rating because you are holding back on reporting your accomplishments), and then whenever you are asked for status update for management/customer, report what you were working on last week/month, not what you are working on right now. This means you are never playing "catch up" externally to yourself. It's like having a month of living expenses saved in your bank account it's a month of political capital saved up at your job.