So there appears to be a disconnect between myself and the primary team I support regarding how you define "urgent." For me, Urgent is one step above High Priority. Urgent is "there's a hard deadline that we're almost on top of, and bad consequences will happen if this is not done ASAP."

But when I've been swamped and asked people to let me know what's urgent so I can prioritize, they flag stuff as 'urgent' that is not at all what I would define as urgent. A $12 reimbursement, or stuff that's high priority / the sooner the better but the hard deadline is a few weeks away.

So I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this, so if it comes up again I can say "hey folks, I'm swamped so let me know if something's urgent, and by urgent I mean xyw"

(xyz)

I used to tell people at GSK to think really long and hard if it was truly urgent. bc if everything is urgent, then nothing is

you have to give them parameters, like due in 24~48 hours or a dollar amount above #$

^ what Jess said

"Urgent is one step above high priority" doesn't give any parameters for how either of those is defined

Depending on how much authority you have re: this team, the exact parameters may be something you would discuss with a manager

And if nothing else, you can dump it in a manager's lap; in my old team doing trust paperwork, all escalations/requests for expedited review had to come from a team manager, to our team manager.

Because otherwise every single advisor wanted their client's paperwork to be the top priority. So "Convince your manager to convince our manager that you deserve to cut in line" wound up being the metric

Right, my situation is that I have no authority with this team. I'm their support person so my job is to fill their requests. I support all the teams in our department but 90% of my work comes from this one. So there's no real organizational barrier between me and them. But also they're fairly personable and friendly,

and have repeatedly told me I can be upfront about telling them what I need to make my job easier

so I want to have something ready to go so I don't run into situations where I have to tell them "No, your $12 reimbursement isn't urgent"

Because I like them, they're good people, I have to work with them on the daily and I don't want to be rude

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, not having actual authority makes it tougher.

Would it work better to say something like, "I only have the capacity to take on 1 expedited item request per person today"? Something to put the burden of prioritizing on them rather than on you?

Hmm...maybe? I kinda like nyarlathotepjr's parameters. I could also add something like "urgent means I need to inform everyone down the line after me that this is the Most Important task and they need to clear the runway for it--is that the case?" Phrased more professionally, of course

Right, yeah. It depends somewhat on what the exact parameters of your work are, and that I don't know, but the big challenge I think is to make sure you get their buy-in on it

maybe like 'if you designate something as urgent I will move it to the top of my priorities and notify everyone down the line that they also need to do the same, is that what is needed?'

also I know you like them but make sure all requests are emailed and of they ask why just say it's so you can track urgent requests properly.

nyarlathotepjr they already do that, so that's a good thing. I make a lot of use of Outlook's flagging feature.