If everything is a number one priority, nothing is.
I’ve literally told our internal users “if you can’t tell me which of these two things is more important to you, my team will work on them in whichever order is best for us.”
“If you could only have one and then the other, which would you pick to go first?” “But we have to have them both.” “Are they related/linked?” “No.” “Then which would you want first?” “I want them both.” “Thank you; I don’t need any more information from you.”
I get that. I have used that exact way of handling it. I was just tired of the 'everything is first' and got pissed off. To prove that they were being silly I picked something I knew for a fact would be a low priority and said 'this is going first. 'oh well not that' 'ahhhh you do know what order this is in compared to the others lets write that down'. I made it painful meeting wise for them to do that to me. Think in one meeting I walked in with a quarter and just started flipping for what went first. They did not like that either. Again 'ahhh you do know lets write that down'. The confusion comes from 'i want it done' to 'which one first'. Those are not the same thing. Something will go first. Either you pick it or I do. If I pick you may not like the answer.
I’ve literally told our internal users “if you can’t tell me which of these two things is more important to you, my team will work on them in whichever order is best for us.”
“If you could only have one and then the other, which would you pick to go first?” “But we have to have them both.” “Are they related/linked?” “No.” “Then which would you want first?” “I want them both.” “Thank you; I don’t need any more information from you.”