At my work, the word 'triage' is not just jargon, it's litany. Everything is triaged. One military veteran gives this working definition for triage:

You're separating the wounded into three groups. One are the ones who aren't seriously hurt enough to need scarce medical resources. The next are the ones who are able to be saved, so they are eligible for those scarce medical resources. The last are the ones who are beyond saving.

These are the same categories for the plethora of tasks flying at me. "Yes, I'll work on it right away." "I'll work on it later, and will get back to you about when by end of day." "No, you'll have to go to my manager about that." That last one is a polite no, because it's very hard to convince a manager in that case. Most of the justifiable reasons will already have passed my filtering. Triage.

The other word is "lifeboat drill." This isn't litany, thank goodness. It's the opposite of triage. Where triage is trying to limit tasks from coming in, lifeboat drills are trying to minimize the list of tasks already in.

The act of a lifeboat drill is simple. You take stock of everything on your list, then toss the least important. The origin of the name is horrible. You're in a lifeboat with either a list of supplies, or a list of people. The lifeboat is taking on water. What (or who) goes overboard?

Fortunately, we don't have to do lifeboat drills very often. I personally feel having to perform a lifeboat drill means the triage process has failed and too many low-priority tasks have slipped in.

For me, I've not had to perform a lifeboat drill in over three years ago. The time I did, hurt. I doubted myself for weeks afterwards. I doubted my intentions; I doubted my reasons. I doubted my abilities and my promises outstanding. It was a bad time.

Even moving up here, I didn't have to. I had to 'escrow' some ties. That's another word we use. Basically, I had to put some investments in a place I couldn't touch, lest I continue to invest in them.

Now, I have to set the "triage bar" higher. I'm not saying any item on the list is low-priority. I just need to be better at prioritizing. Those on the list stay on the list. Those not on ... probably stay not on.