Prioritising means comparing options with visible criteria and agreeing what happens now, later, elsewhere, or not at all. It is not guessing what each requester wants. Marta receives an incident query, an internal document request, and an unrelated question; their tone may all sound urgent, but their impact differs.

Ask one more question: “Which important task am I displacing by accepting this?”

Name the critical result, list competing work, decide who does what and what pauses, then set a review point. Marta assigns impact validation, supporting documentation, and communication separately; the unrelated query receives a clear expectation rather than silence.

When capacity is insufficient, preserve the essential result: an incident report may include confirmed impact and the next update while the detailed cause analysis follows later. Communicate the trade-off so affected people can decide whether to accept it.

Rank a blocked-user error, tomorrow's presentation, routine emails, and old notes. Explain the criteria and write one sentence that communicates a pause. The answer matters less than making the displaced work visible.

Regulation creates space; explicit impact, urgency, dependencies, and cost turn that space into a priority.

A useful priority protects a result and clears competing work. Next, turn priorities into a realistic time plan.