Question: I need another excuse of "I was very busy" as people became tired of hearing it. So, I thought of expressing the idea of having a very restricted/limited time for all the tasks that I have been assigned to do and therefore I couldn't completely finish this specific one. The thing is I can't get my hands on a suitable phrase.

I guess it would be something like:

> 
> I wasn't able to finish it as I **got pretty restricted** in time.
> 
> 
> 

Is it correct? Can I achieve that meaning better?

It is not necessary to be formal, but I don't want it to be too informal.

Answer: 
There are some other good suggestions here. I might also use:

> 
> I got caught up with other work.
> 
> 
> I got caught up in other work.
> 
> 
> 

Either of these means that you were very busy or “tangled up” with other work- like you couldn’t escape the trap of the work, so to speak.

EDIT: Sorry, I should have also addressed your own suggestion - 

> 
> I got pretty restricted in time.
> 
> 
> 

I would not say that, even if the meaning might be understood. The phrasing is awkward - it would sound better to say

> 
> My time was restricted.
> 
> 
> 

if you were to use the word *restricted*. *Restricted* is something that *is*, not something that is *gotten*, generally speaking.

Also, *restricted* is often used to indicate some specific enforced limit, like "Access was restricted to authorized users", or "My time was restricted to three hours". I think in this case the word doesn't completely fit if nobody was actually forcing you to only spend a certain amount of time on this particular task. I daresay it might come off as rude to tell someone the time you had for this task was *restricted*; they might think you set a limit on the time you were going to spend on it because you didn't think it was that important.
Suggestions:
I wasn't able to do it because I ran out of time.   

There wasn't enough time to do everything I needed to do.   

I didn't have sufficient time to do everything.