C1 - An ER doctor on how to triage your busy life

An ER doctor on how to triage your busy life

Triage - how to apply it in daily life situations

Video

Let's watch a video about the TRIAGE. What is it and how can we apply it apart from the hospital life.

Take notes. Remember to turn off the music in the background for better quality of the video.

WARM-UP

Do you have a system of prioritising your tasks? What does it look like?

WARM-UP

Do you find it hard or easy to make decisions? How would you like to improve your decision making process?

VOCABULARY

wrapped

differentiate

executive function

prime

gut-wrenching

prefrontal cortex

derail

stringent

deteriorate

influx

co-locate

modifiable

headed your way

hover

triage

Your phrasal verb for today:

root for

Your phrasal verb for today:

go ahead

Your noun for today:

tunnel vision

Your noun for today:

warm fuzzies

Let's check what you remember

QUESTION TIME

Why does being crazy busy make us less capable of handling what’s going on?

QUESTION TIME

What does it mean to be in ready mode?

QUESTION TIME

How do we operate in the crazy mode and in the ready mode?

QUESTION TIME

What does it mean “to triage”?

QUESTION TIME

How does triaging system look in the ER?

QUESTION TIME

Does the noisiest equal the most urgent? Why or why not?

QUESTION TIME

Why is it crucial to know your “reds”?

QUESTION TIME

What happens when you try to do everything?

QUESTION TIME

What are "black" tasks in life?

QUESTION TIME

How can you handle “crazy” in your life?

QUESTION TIME

Does having multiple options help us make good decisions?

QUESTION TIME

How can we simplify our decision making process?

QUESTION TIME

Does tunnel vision help us get from crazy mode to ready mode?

QUESTION TIME

How can compassion help you stay in ready mode?

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

What are your current "reds"? What "noise" do you need to disregard to stay focused on your "reds"?

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

What are your "blacks" that you need to let go of to stay focused on the most important things?

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

How can you reduce the amount of decisions you need to make on daily basis? What is it going to give you? How do you think it can help you?

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

How can you prime your brain for compassion? How could people around you benefit from your compassionate attitude towards them?

How could you be more compassionate towards yourself? How could it change your life?

Thank you - will you apply TRIAGE in your life?

Our stress hormones rise and stay on the risen level. Our executive function in the prefrontal cortex declines. That, in turn, causes our memory, judgment and impulse control to deteriorate. Also, our anger and anxiety areas in the brain get activated

Research shows that when we prime our brain with compassion, we disrupt tunnel vision and internal monologue. We widen our perception; the brain can take in broader information and see more possibilities which helps to make better decisions. Our internal monologue can derail us, and when we get out of our head, we can out of our way.

You need to anticipate that “crazy” is going to happen and prepare for it. We don’t prepare for ‘if crazy happens”, we prepare for “when crazy happens”.

executive function prefrontal cortex deteriorate modifiable triage differentiate gut-wrenching stringent co-locate hover wrapped prime derail influx head your way

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No, it doesn’t. The more options we have, the longer each decision takes. And the more decisions we must make, the more exhausted our brain gets. This makes us less capable of making good decisions.

In crazy mode, we are always stressed because we are reacting to every challenge with the same response. We cannot differentiate threat from non-threat. It doubles the level of stress hormones. In ready mode, we endlessly triage.

We can get very easily distracted by something that might be screaming for our attention. Things can feel urgent when they are not “red”. Our speaker gave an example of her house being flooded. Once the damage was stopped and stabilised, it stopped being urgent. It still felt “red” yet there were other priorities to be attended to first. They might have been less “noisy” e.g., finishing a chapter of a book, so it would have been very easy to get distracted by the literal and metaphoric noise of the floor being repaired. Hence, it’s so important to know your “reds”.

When you try to do everything, you have no chance of saving your “reds”. That which is truly important will not get done.

The noisiest cases are not necessarily “red”. Someone might be making a lot of noise, but it doesn’t mean they need help urgently. Sometimes it’s the quietest patient who needs help first e.g., severe asthmatic patient.

We can plan e.g., plan our meals for the whole week ahead. We can automate which means not leaving to memory anything that can be automatically scheduled e.g., recurring purchases. We can co-locate e.g., store all the equipment that we need for a certain activity together, charged, and ready. We can decrease temptations and stop working our willpower. For example if we love sugary foods, we could put them on a higher shelf where we can’t reach without a stool.

In the ER the focus goes first to life-threatening situations (red), then to serious but not immediately life-threating (yellow) and then to minor cases (green).

We tend to get tunnel vision when we’re scared or nervous. We can start catastrophising, and we’re not able to see anything else and we’re not able to solve anything. We’re in crazy mode then and moving away from ready mode.

It means that whatever comes, you are ready for it, and you know you can handle it.

It means to prioritize by degree of urgency.

Black tasks are the ones we need to take off our list. It might feel gut-wrenching to do so but to attend to our “reds”, we need to prioritise and let go of what is less important.