Since I help put out a lot of fires, some of them smoldering and with potential threatening to (eventually) burn down the company, I like to think of what I do

Since I help put out a lot of fires, some of them smoldering and with potential threatening to (eventually) burn down the company, I like to think of what I do as working from two priority queues. The first priority queue is very small and what will be done today/in the near future. The second priority queue is a list of everything else. Stuff can get bumped from the first priority queue back to the second priority queue. Both queues are constantly being reshuffled (in my mind, not in JIRA). I never really understood the agile/scrum thinking that seem to block parallel execution - or management implied could only be executed serially (as in this feature needs to get done at the detriment of this one). System-level issues trump individual customer-level issues. Long-term fixes for customer-level issues trump individual fixes for customer-level issues (unless, of course, said customer has escalated). Paying off high-interest technical debt that has rolled over to several credit cards is a high priority, as well. The reality is that when the house is fire, you need to put out the fire. Sometimes the perception is that there is a fire when there is not, though. And, if you see something that is a potential fire hazard/already smoldering, you need to aggressively put that out.