Category: Productivity

When we encounter the word “triage” in fiction, we often see it as a dramatic thing, the medical person agonizing over who to treat and when – usually with someone’s life on a fragile thread.

Believe it or not, even in an emergency room, that isn’t how triage works.

Triage is just a set of priorities you have thought about in advance in a non-emergency situation, so you can decide easily and quickly how to address situations thrown at you.

Do you have any sort of triage for your own life? What are your priorities?

So, in my last blog post, I talked about defining what’s “good enough” when addressing things in your life.

Until you know those priorities, you can’t possibly know what good enough should look like.

As part of getting control of your life, we’re going to explore how to triage your own life by sitting down in a non-emergency situation and making a plan of action. You’ll learn how to address what’s most important calmly. You’ll learn how to set standards, so you’re not wasting time on things that aren’t very important to you. You’ll learn how to evaluate what’s an actual problem that needs addressing and what’s a proxy (you’ll even learn the term) for the real problem.

Want to Get Control of Your Life?

“If the Venn diagram of your “Good Enough” day and your “Perfect” day is a circle, you have never defined what Good Enough looks like.” – Noël Lynne Figart.

I am in the best physical shape of my adult life from defining “good enough.” Two and a half years ago, I declared that if I got in 10,000 steps a day as measured over a month, that was “good enough” in terms of physical activity.

Do I ever exercise in other ways? Sure. However, the clear priority is to make sure I have in those steps. I don’t quit. I don’t crash and burn. I exercise moderately and consistently in a way that is desirable to me.

The problem of getting in enough exercise? That’s solved. I can chew on it for fun, but there are better places to focus my attention. I don’t need to worry about running out of problems to solve

Achievement is often marketed as only counting when you are putting in Extraordinary Effort. I have many examples in my own life where Tedious Consistency beats Extraordinary Effort every time.

Today, as I write this, I’m leaning hard on “good enough.” I don’t feel energetic. I’m not excited about the day. I’m not even excited to be writing. (I know, take my temperature, ’cause I gotta be sick).

But I do have a view of “good enough.” I have a general schedule when things need to be done, and it’s not some Platonic* version of perfection. I don’t have to think too hard to decide whether or not to do something. I know what oughta get done, but bluntly? The world will not end if I skip cleaning out the vacuum canister this month. Besides, this article is more important.

But…

You can’t define “good enough” until you’re very clear on the triage of your priorities.

Which, you guessed it, I’ll be teaching in my Get Control of Your Life! class.

* The Platonic Ideal of something isn’t about whether or not sex is involved, by the way. It is about an ideal – the quintessence of an object or concept that is the spiritual ideal and impossible to reflect in the physical world.