Activity Triage

Activity Triage

In my 40s I am making up for lost time, and I have filled my Agenda with events, activities, webinars, body doubling, and meetups. There are some weeks where I have an activity planed every evening. Is this exciting? Yes! Is this overwhelming? Yes! And sometimes I cannot manage it.

But instead of throwing up my hands and activating hermit mode, I pause and put a little mindfulness practice to the situation.

The pause is the most important part. I consider myself anovice or amateur meditator, so it still takes me time to and struggle to be able to observe my feelings and thoughts from a place of discerning detachment. To name what’s going on with my emotions or energy, and move through it with ease. But I continue to practice, and my Activity Triage is a helpful piece of this.

WHAT IS AN ACTIVITY TRIAGE?

First things first, this is absolutely a thing I made up.

My Activity Triage is a tool I use to pull myself out of my circulating thoughts and decide if I will be attending an event or not based on the criteria laid out within.

Triage is a term referring to the assignment of priority levels to tasks or individuals to determine the most effective order in which to deal with them.

I don’t think that it is technically a “triage” tool, but like the Edmonton Funicular that is actually an inclined elevator and not a true funicular, it is now a proper noun.

The criteria are not applied in a specific order, and one “no” does not remove or skip other questions. As it exists, all questions are equally weighted, but will not equally apply to all situations or types of events. It is a living document, and I have already made a few additions and tweaks since I started using it.

Y’all this is a rest activator, a values alignment, a journaling tool.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

When I have a very full week – lots of pink squares in my Agenda – and I feel the overwhelm and excuses start to rise in my body/mind to avoid a specific event, I pull out the triage and my agenda. I take a few breaths to centre myself on this task and start reading the questions. Depending on the answers, I either attend the event or send my regrets and rest.

EXAMPLE OF THE TRIAGE IN USE

Okay, let’s workshop this. I am going to run through a typical scenario of where I have used this with success. And then another one where I used it halfway through an event to give me insight into one of my most recent tweaks.

SCENARIO ONE

There is a group that meets in person and online every two weeks. The facilitator is A++ and the 90 minutes is absolutely fulfilling. But sometimes leaving the house seems impossible. aka I put on my pajamas the minute I got home from work. My Activity Triage shows me that I want to go, and the barrier is leaving the house, so I choose to attend online instead of abandoning it altogether.

SCENARIO TWO

There is another group in my city who meets in person only occasionally. I had the opportunity to attend one of these rare meetups, so I was really pushing through my social anxiety and fake excuses to go. Thankfully, the location was within walking distance of my house. I made a deal with myself to at least walk over there, and I could make the next decision once I got there. I could see the group through the window, and I knew right away that I would not feel comfortable there. So I turned around.

This lead to the most recent addition to the triage: who will be there? is this an opportunity to make connections or are these people I don’t like?

POST TRIAGE ACTIVATION

What happens after I activate the triage is super important too. More important than I first considered. If I cancel because I need to rest, I must rest. That usually means reading and going to bed early. If I cancel because I know the event will not be supportive, or will trigger pain, I need to do some further work on that. I also make a note for myself to reconsider similar events in the future. And if I really want to go, but I’m tired, I go tired.

CONSTANT TWEAKING

Like I mentioned earlier, this is al iving document. I change and adjust it as I learn new things, encounter new stressors, or grow out of old ones. I am also a living, changing being, so this makes perfect sense to me. Some weeks it is easier to say YES to activities that in other weeks would not pass the triage. That is okay. Sometimes it is a lesson and sometimes it’s just crummy week.

DO YOU NEED ONE?

Try and answer these questions:

• Do you struggle with over planning or over committing yourself?
• Do you easily find or make excuses for neglecting to follow through on your activity commitments?
• Do you want to get out more, but are also working on overcoming your shyness or social anxiety?

HERE IT IS!

Sorry if I buried the lede, but I wanted to get some of the fine print out of the way before I shared the actual content. This is a highly personalized tool that I built for myself that might have applications for other folks. And you might think it’s silly and a waste of time! Whatever!

I want folks to know that they should never automatically respond to SHOULDS, and that a little mindfulness in how we live our everyday lives is a great thing.

Remember, these questions are in no particular order.

• Consider the past 2 to 3 days; have I already done a lot or spent my emotional bandwidth?
• Does the event match my Feelings Goals or other goals?
• Did I pre-pay for it? Or am I getting information/access for free that normally costs money?
• Are the online events linked to other current projects? Will they give me greater knowledge or experience to achieve my goals or finish projects? Will there be a replay?
• Will this drain or activate my energy? Will my neurodivergence be supported or triggered?
• Who will be there? Is this an opportunity to make connections or are these people I don’t like?
• Do I want to go, or do I feel like I “should” go?

FURTHER READING AND RESOURCES

I love my Agendio planner! It is fully customizable and reasonably priced. Click here to use my referral code.

Community Justice Circle meets in person in Edmonton and online every two weeks and I now consider it a must attend. (to note, this link takes you to Facebook – they don’t have their own website as of this writing)