What is the biggest drag on your time and effort as a PM?

  •   #1  Meetings
      #2  Managers who won't put anything into writing and keep changing their minds.
    
    The two, in my experience, are highly correlated. As much as I try, I've never been able to enforce the discipline of demanding meeting agendas to be written up and circulated with at least 2 days notice. Maybe its my extreme bad luck, but I've had too many fuzzy thinkers as managers.