I hear you that with the work demands increasing, you worry about delivering everything. When the work gets overwhelming, sometimes you need to do the triage exercise.
When I taught teaching Crisis Informatics, we had a group of students go over to the nursing school for a lab. We actually ran the triage exercise that nursing students experience. There were four different color tarps on the floor. The person who was in charge of nursing simulations, handed out lanyards that had what injury a person had on it. And then there was the intake crew that would then read your injury card, ask you some questions and then assign you to go stand on a particular tarp. So there were the most urgent attention needed (red tarp), the second most urgent (yellow tarp), there were the goners (black tarp), and there were the ones that were probably okay, with minor injuries (green tarp).
Sorting the work can be similar. What things can't you change? That goes to the black tarp. What things are most urgent and need to be attended to now? Those are on the red tarp. What tasks are next in line (Yellow tarp) and the green tarp was the walking wounded who could wait. Prioritization, as you well know, is a regular part of IT management and governance, because the demands always exceed the supply. But what you work on now may be a matter of survival. Your survival!
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