What is priority classification?

Priority classification is a concept in personal epistemology: Classifying items by importance or urgency enables systematic decision-making.

Example: Your task list has 47 items. Without priority types, you scan the whole list every time, picking whatever feels most urgent or generates the most anxiety. With four priority types — critical, high, normal, low — you stop scanning. You process the three critical items first, schedule the seven high items for the week, batch the normal items for when bandwidth opens, and let the low items sit until they either become relevant or expire. You went from 47 individual decisions to four categorical ones.

This concept is part of Phase 12 (Classification and Typing) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for classification and typing.