How do you deal with being blocked by other people?

I have a slightly contrarian view here. I think work is not prioritised by an individual engineer in most big organisations. Priority is set by tech leads, product/program managers etc. So if a certain task is waiting on someone else to action on it, you might need to make sure you chase them enough to get it done. I know it sounds a bit pushy, maybe even a bit stern and irritating to the other party. But let's be honest, these 'tasks' are not assigned to you by you. Or they are not added to your book of work, because you proposed it. Even if you did (for example, you're the tech lead for an engineering team) - let's be honest, there's a gigantic flywheel of discussions that happens behind you in big tech firms. So if it is a priority, I would pursue blockers hammer and tongs. If it is not a priority, I would reduce the time required to context switch and convince myself to work on things that I may not necessarily like/want/have enough context about.