Free tool
Nurse Task Prioritizer.
It's 0710, you have eight things in your head, and report's still going. Dump the list here — one task per line — and get it ranked the way nursing school (and the NCLEX) wants you to think: Airway, Breathing, Circulation first, then acute-and-unstable, then time-critical, then safety, then routine. Every ranking shows the rule behind it, so it's a teaching tool, not a black box. Runs entirely on your device.
Your task list
One task per line. Keep it generic — describe the task, not the patient.
The order it uses
| Priority | Bucket | What lands here |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | ABC / life threat | Airway (obstruction, stridor, suctioning), Breathing (desat, resp distress, SOB), Circulation (chest pain, pulseless, active bleed, hypotension, code, stroke, anaphylaxis, unresponsive). |
| 2nd | Acute / unstable / time-critical | New or worsening changes (acute neuro change, new severe pain), time-critical meds (insulin, heparin, STAT antibiotics, blood), critical labs, post-op / rapid-response / sepsis, fever, seizure. |
| 3rd | Important & stable / safety | Scheduled meds, focused assessments & vitals, safety checks (fall risk, q-checks, restraints), monitoring (accuchecks, I&O, dressings, turns, ambulation), routine lab draws. |
| 4th | Routine / delegable | Charting, ADLs (hygiene, meals, linens), restocking, non-urgent calls and teaching, transport. Many of these can be delegated within your scope. |
Within a bucket, tasks stay in the order you typed them. The engine also layers in classic NCLEX rules: actual problems before potential/risk, unstable before stable, acute before chronic, and Maslow's hierarchy (physiologic needs before safety before psychosocial). It reads keywords — a real patient's acuity always trumps a keyword, so reorder freely.
Frameworks referenced
- Airway–Breathing–Circulation (ABC) prioritization and the "actual before potential / unstable before stable / acute before chronic" rules — standard NCLEX-RN test-taking and clinical-prioritization framework (e.g., Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-RN; NCSBN NCLEX-RN Test Plan).
- Maslow AH. A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review. 1943;50(4):370–396 — hierarchy of needs (physiologic → safety → psychosocial) as applied to nursing care prioritization.