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What Is 'Triage'?

• Triage is the process of identifying and handling the most important matters first, allowing less urgent matters to wait.
• Some tasks are more important, valuable, or urgent than others.
• Triage can help you focus on your Most Important Tasks.

Josh Kaufman Explains 'Triage'

A few years ago, I found myself in the emergency room of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City at 2:00 in the morning, suffering from extreme abdominal pain. As soon as I arrived, a nurse saw me, took detailed notes on my symptoms, then directed me to the waiting area.

I waited three hours to see the doctor on call. That was a good thing.

Triage is the process of identifying and handling the most important matters first, allowing less urgent matters to wait. Hospital emergency rooms are equipped to deal with a wide variety of ailments, ranging from trivial to life-threatening. There are a limited number of doctors and nurses available to provide care, and in the most severe cases, seconds matter. The first task of the triage nurse is to identify who needs care right away and who can afford to wait.

In my case, the mystery stomach pain was extreme at the beginning, but it was already improving by the time I arrived at the hospital, and I wasn’t exhibiting any of the signs of someone who needed critical care. By the time the doctor on call had capacity to see me, my symptoms had resolved, and a few quick tests confirmed there was nothing urgent or critical. While I waited, the doctors and nurses had tended to dozens of patients with severe issues that required immediate attention.

Triage, as a strategy, applies to much more than medical care. Not every task on your to-do list has the same impact: some tasks are more important and valuable than others; some are time sensitive, while others are not. Triage can help you focus on your Most Important Tasks and not feel bad about letting less important tasks slip.

The same idea applies to most business systems. Most businesses have some sort of customer-support queue, and some requests are more urgent or important than others. If you have a large, long-term client who is experiencing issues, it is both rational and wise to prioritize resolving their problem before responding to someone with a small Free trial account.

Your ability to Triage relies on your ability to collect information relevant to the situation. It’s often helpful to create a defined hierarchy of priority for each Context, then customize the questions you ask to ensure you have the relevant information needed to categorize each case.

In a business context, this technique is often referred to as “lead scoring.” Defining metrics like the strength of each prospect, the projected Lifetime Value of a customer, or the urgency and importance of each incoming request helps you Systematize the support process so you can handle the most important cases first.

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"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."

William James, nineteenth-century doctor and pioneering psychologist

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https://personalmba.com/triage/

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