Triage Meets Sustainable Flow: A Combined Approach to Productivity

1. Don’t Trust Your Brain (Justin) + It’s Impossible to Clear the List (Ali)

What Justin Says: Our brains are wired for basic survival, not perfect execution. They seek shortcuts and comfort, leading to procrastination or failure to follow complicated schedules. It’s unrealistic to assume your mind will flawlessly comply with daily plans.

What Ali Adds: A to-do list is never fully cleared. The doctor’s triage approach expects new tasks (or “patients”) constantly. We can’t handle them all perfectly, so the real skill is prioritizing effectively.

Blending Both:

1. Expect mental slip-ups. Don’t rely solely on willpower. Build in buffers and accept you’ll fall off sometimes.

2. Recognize infinite tasks: Stop aiming to “finish everything.” Instead, pick the tasks that truly matter today and let the rest wait or go undone.

Result: You reduce guilt, free up time for real priorities, and harness mental energy for high-impact work.

2. Start Small, Then Go Nuclear (Justin) + Daily Reset (Ali)

What Justin Says: Begin with a simple fix for a productivity hurdle—like turning off notifications. If that fails, apply a heavy-handed solution: uninstall distracting apps, block websites entirely, or radically simplify your workflow.

What Ali Adds: Each day in a hospital starts with a fresh piece of paper. The old list is discarded. This daily reset clarifies what actually matters today instead of carrying forward a giant backlog.

Blending Both:

1. Daily small changes: Tackle minor tasks (like two-minute tasks or removing a single distraction) to maintain momentum.

2. If small fails, go big: If you keep losing to the same distraction, remove it altogether. Then, each morning, re-check your priorities from scratch.

Result: A daily reset ensures you never drown under yesterday’s undone items. Small or big interventions happen on a fresh slate.

3. Sutton’s Law: Find the Real Bottleneck (Justin) + Triage Real-Time (Ali)

What Justin Says: Go “where the money is.” Tackle the main sticking point—like severe procrastination—rather than tinkering with minor tools (e.g., multiple task apps).

What Ali Adds: In an emergency room, new urgent needs keep popping up, so constantly reprioritize. If a big issue (like a major “patient”) arises, drop less critical tasks right away.

Blending Both:

1. Identify your biggest time drain—maybe it’s phone scrolling or never saying “no.” Focus your energy on that.

2. Reevaluate daily. If a bigger problem surfaces, pivot. Don’t cling to smaller tasks out of habit.

Result: You apply triage logic to your personal or work life: do the highest-impact fix first, even if it means leaving some tasks aside.

4. Do More with Less (Justin) + The Box Method (Ali)

What Justin Says: Avoid countless apps or elaborate frameworks. Simpler systems (perhaps one good task manager plus a notepad) encourage consistency.

What Ali Adds: Doctors often use a plain piece of paper with boxes to represent tasks. They shade or line these boxes to show partial progress, cross them out entirely when done. It’s visual, straightforward, and doesn’t rely on a complex digital system.

Blending Both:

1. Stick to minimal tools: A single notepad or a straightforward digital app is enough to label tasks and track partial completions.

2. Visual partial progress: If you only rely on fancy automation, you might lose the small dopamine hit from shading in a physical box.

Result: A simple, consistent method fosters more actual task completion and less friction than juggling multiple overlapping tools.

5. Focus Zones and Deep Flow (Justin) + Triage “Ward Rounds” (Ali)

What Justin Says: Flow is when you’re fully absorbed in a task. Set up a “focus zone”—a mental or physical environment that eases entry into flow (like a clutter-free desk, noise-canceling headphones, or even a café). Also, note your natural peaks—maybe mornings or afternoons.

What Ali Adds: Doctors conduct ward rounds daily to check each patient. Similarly, keep a project overview. Each project has a status (on track, waiting, or on ice) and a next step. This ensures you’re not missing anything crucial before diving into flow.

Blending Both:

1. Create routine check-ins: Once or twice a week, do a “ward round” for your personal projects. Update their status and see which deserve a “flow block.”

2. Match tasks to energy: Tackle major creative tasks (the “frog”) in your personal focus zone during your peak hours.

Result: You don’t guess or scramble mid-week. Each “round” clarifies which tasks you’ll lock in for deep work sessions, removing mental clutter.

6. Intentional Incompletion (Ali) + “Or Not And” (Justin)

What Ali Says: It’s physically impossible to do all tasks. Doctors hand over leftover tasks at shift’s end. Learn to let some to-do items remain undone if they’re low-priority.

What Justin Adds: If you add a new ambition or project (“I want to learn German”), decide which existing commitment you’ll cut to make space. Rarely can you just keep piling on responsibilities.

Blending Both:

1. Acknowledge infinite demands. Let go of tasks that aren’t truly critical so you can spend off-work hours with loved ones or personal pursuits.

2. For new goals, ask, “Which current obligation must I drop to ensure I have capacity?” If the answer is none, reconsider the new goal.

Result: Both mindsets protect time from being overstuffed, leaving genuine quality time for family, self-care, and rest.

7. Eat the Frog, Then Leave it Unfinished (Ali’s “Frog” + Justin’s Zeigarnik Effect)

What Ali Says: Tackle your biggest, toughest task first. It’s often the most important. Overcoming that early frees the rest of the day.

What Justin Says: Don’t feel obligated to finish the entire daunting project in one go. “Nibble” it. The Zeigarnik Effect says an unfinished task stays mentally active, increasing your desire to return.

Blending Both:

1. Identify the day’s “frog”—the chunk you want to do first.

2. Allow partial completion. Stop halfway if you want. Paradoxically, you’ll be more motivated to finish later.

Result: You handle major tasks without the panic of an all-or-nothing approach, and partial progress fosters momentum.

8. Sharpen the Axe (Justin) + 2-for-1 Hour Rule (Ali)

What Justin Says: Sometimes you need to pause and improve your overall methodology—like learning better study skills or rehauling your system. It’s an upfront time cost that saves huge time later.

What Ali Adds: An hour before 9:00 a.m. might be worth two hours in the evening when you’re drained. If you’re investing time to “sharpen the axe,” do it when your mind is fresh so you can truly absorb new methods.

Blending Both:

1. Schedule “learning improvement” or “system rehaul” sessions at your peak energy slot. That ensures maximum retention and sets you up to save time in the long run.

2. Lower-priority tasks can occupy lower-energy moments. Don’t waste morning brilliance on them.

Result: By actively refining your productivity approach in those valuable hours, you reduce wasted efforts long-term and preserve more of your day for personal life.

9. Book the Scan First (Ali) + Work-Rest Timers (Justin)

What Ali Says: If a task depends on someone else (like requesting tests in a hospital), do it immediately so they can start their part. This avoids bigger hold-ups later.

What Justin Says: Timed work-rest cycles (like Pomodoro) help maintain consistent progress and let the brain recover. But ensure you’re not stopping a deep flow if it’s still going.

Blending Both:

1. Start by unblocking others—send that email, request, or file at the beginning.

2. Then set a timed block for your own concentration, ensuring you rest on schedule to avoid burnout.

Result: Other people do their part in parallel, and you maintain a healthy cycle of focus and breaks.

10. Plan for the Real (Not Ideal) (Ali) + Stay on the Pulse (Justin)

What Ali Says: Don’t create a fantasy schedule expecting no interruptions. That only leads to daily disappointment and wasted energy re-planning.

What Justin Says: “Staying on the pulse” means adjusting as new info arrives—like nurses calling for test updates. If situations shift quickly, re-prioritize more frequently. If it’s stable, re-check less often.

Blending Both:

1. Build in buffers so you aren’t forced to rework the entire schedule every time something small goes sideways.

2. Check your “pulse rate”—if your environment changes rapidly (multiple Slack pings or new tasks), do mini re-prioritizations maybe twice a day. If stable, do it once a day or weekly.

Result: Realism in planning plus swift re-checks keeps you flexible without turning the day into a chaotic re-planning session every hour.

Conclusion: A Joint Path to Freedom and Fulfillment

By merging Ali Abdaal’s Triage System with Justin Sung’s sustainable productivity insights, we get a powerful blueprint:

1. Accept mental imperfection—your brain and infinite tasks aren’t flawlessly aligned.

2. Triage priorities—drop or postpone what’s not crucial, do the urgent and important right away.

3. Simplify systems—fewer apps, more clarity.

4. Embrace partial completions—“nibbling the frog” and letting Zeigarnik keep you motivated.

5. Refine your approach—sharpen the axe, manage rest effectively, and schedule tasks at your best flow times.

This unified perspective isn’t about becoming an ultra-busy work machine. It’s about systematically guarding your most precious resource: time. When used well, time yields not just productivity in career, but freedom to invest in family, personal aspirations, or simple joy. Instead of feeling chained to never-ending tasks, you walk away from the desk at day’s end knowing you tackled what truly mattered. And that, ultimately, is how we preserve both peace of mind and deeper connections in our modern, high-demand lives.