Go From Overwhelm to Organized with this Simple Task Triage System.

Learn to prioritize like a pro.

You didn’t notice that your knee was bouncing. Shifting in your seat, you felt it jam into the underside of your desk.

Blargh.

Guess you were bouncing your knee in agitation after all. Wonder if your face knows about the agitation, too – wait, shit.

As if in slow motion, your coffee crests the rim of your mug and makes a break for the keyboard. A quick check confirms that your camera is on but you are, in fact, still muted. You double check one more time anyway before daring a soft “fuck’s sake…” more to yourself than to anyone on the call. 

Do you really need to be part of this meeting? Or, at the very least, does this meeting really need to be happening this week? Today? Yet another chat catches your eye while you try, with fervor, to steer the trackpad anywhere close to the “stop video” button. An @ mention, great.

The fingers on your left hand extend toward the napkins from lunch yesterday–or was it last week?– in a desperate effort to foil the keyboard caffeination attempt. As your fingertips brush against the dry supply, your phone rings. Yes, your phone that’s on do-not-disturb. The jolt successfully sends the napkins careening to the floor. 8 missed calls – for real? It’s going to have to wait. You need all 30 minutes after this meeting to finish the slides for the next one.

It’s the text that does it.

It’s only Tuesday but three words just toppled your week and probably your weekend. Again. Maybe even next week, too.

“Check your email.”

Does the mythical land of Caught Up actually exist? What about such exotic locales as Ahead?

Yes, both exist.

4 steps and 30 minutes to get caught up.

Before we spend too long daydreaming of galaxies far, far away, let’s clean up the coffee and make a plan to get through the day. What we need right now, in this moment, is a triage system.

We need to stop the bleed before we proceed.

Then we’ll look at systems to sustain the journey onward to the land of Caught Up and Ahead.

There are so many acronyms out there for what to do and when, where, and how to do it. Things to do, things not to do; who’s right? Which ones should you use, which should you throw out, and which should you use before or after the others?

There is so much fluff to sift through. And in the irony of all ironies, here’s one more acronym. This is also the one that will help you decide when to use the other tricks, tips, and tools you’ve opted to keep in your arsenal.

pipes.

1. Pause & Identify

2. Prioritize

3. Eliminate

4. Start

To clean out the pipes properly, we have to get comfortable with the idea of identifying the MOST important, mission critical thing on your plate. Everything we decide to do will be in service of that. 

That’s you. You’re the pipe cleaner.