High priority

Spent the day in Switzerland talking to a couple clients about upcoming product launches.   In both cases I'd been assured that my involvement was 'high priority'. I've been on holidays for ten days and, in one case, nothing has happened in the interim.  Literally nothing.  My carefully crafted proposal hadn't even been read.
Merlin Mann is brutally realistic about this: -

The only way that I will be able to tell if you thought something was 'high priority' was that you finished it. If it's not done it's not really a priority

When a client tells me something's 'high priority' mostly she's just making nice.  I'm not saying that she's lying, but rather there's a misuse of the phrase.  What she actually means is that there's an inclination within the company to get a project up but that inclination hasn't yet been matched with the necessary will.  It does me no good whatsoever to call her on it; she is still the client.  Instead I smile and put a note in the diary to follow up with her in a month or so. If she indicates commitment with action in the mean time then I'm ready to respond immediately.

The other client demonstrated what 'high priority' actually looks like: upcoming meetings diarised, purchase orders generated and a timeline for senior management sign-off. The actual phrase 'high priority' didn't rate a mention.