I just checked it, it is clearly nonsense/error.
The emails with the 'correct' order
- a partner at 4pm yesterday (Tuesday) emailed to say they are meeting a client next Tuesday and has asked for a page of bullet points on cost impacts of new building legislation by next Monday midday, latest, to prep for said meeting.
- you've been asked by an associate at 09:04 to compile a signature pack for a client to fund the deal in advance of 2pm bank closing
- your supervisor has emailed at 09:01, marked urgent, saying that you need to download property for an unspecified number of titles from the Land Registry, from a spreadsheet, note the charges on those properties, compile this into an email, and send it to them "sufficiently in advance of 11am"
- a trainee at 08:54 working on a new deal emailed to ask where is a template for property title red flags
- a paralegal has some signed documents and asked yesterday at 7pm where to send them
- graduate recruitment emailed yesterday at 5pm asking for a reply to a simple "which career fairs" could you attend by CoB today
- a client email sent last night at 8pm saying that "following their purchase" last month, they want an email on the law on whether they have a right to drive over neighbouring land to access their property, and will then discuss by phone
- an HR email to submit seat choices by next Wednesday at 3pm, sent this morning.
- an HR survey on training effectiveness, specifically stated to take 20 minutes, and required by CoB next Monday, which was sent several weeks ago
Of these:
- item 1 is time-consuming, and not urgent, so is definitely in the wrong place
- items 2 and 3 are very urgent, and are clearly two top priorities. it's not really clear how long these will take, but I think they are in the wrong order, in that "sufficiently in advance" implies that this is not going to take you that long to do.
- items 4, 5, 6 can be answered quickly so should be. The priority order here is roughly correct, in that 4 & 5 might be holding people up.
- item 7 is time-consuming and can come after completing the trivial tasks and the two urgent tasks, and before item 1
- item 8 and 9 are probably in the wrong order? There might be reasons why you have not decided your next seat yet, and it's not clear why you'd answer this before you have to.
Overall it's a poor-quality task, as they don't give any feedback for their order, which I assume is down to a clerical/programming error.
I would go:
3
2
5
4
6
7
1
9
8