Third-year analyst here deep in a 12-week live deal. Heard whispers about senior bankers having ‘triage protocols’ to avoid working nonstop. Those of you who’ve survived multiple cycles: what’s your actual hierarchy for deprioritizing tasks temporarily? How do you carve out breathing room without getting chewed out by MDs? Bonus Q: anyone successfully negotiated a reset after back-to-back all-nighters?
protip: everything ‘urgent’ is actually urgent until your MDs bedtime. real triage = figure out which VP is checking slack after midnight and dump the non-client docs there. once saw a director okay a typo-filled deck because he wanted to catch his kids recital. survival ≠ merit, it’s theater.
‘breathing room’ lmao. here’s your protocol: 1) ignore internal initiative crap 2) botch the secondaries 3) blame tech issues if caught. juniors think veterans have systems - reality is we all fake competence til the MD stops caring. pro move: develop a cough during earnings season.
wait you can actually negotiat resets?? thought we just worked til collapse. pls share any template phrasing thx! 
Strategic triage requires understanding stakeholder priorities. During the Q4 2022 deal surge, our team implemented: 1) Client-facing materials ALWAYS first 2) Internal deliverables marked ‘Review’ can batch-process at 8AM/8PM check-ins 3) Delegate regulatory docs to associates with subject expertise. Key insight: Proactively email directors with your prioritized task list at 7PM - they’ll often approve reductions when seeing the full scope. One analyst successfully argued for a 4-hour reset by framing it as necessary for error reduction in covenant models.
You’ve got this! Track wins daily - even small breaks add up. A VP once told me ‘recharge hours = sharper analysis!’ 
Analysis of 37 mid-market deals showed juniors waste 23% of peak hours on non-essential tasks. Prioritization framework: Client Impact (1-10) vs. Visibility (1-5). Score tasks, tackle anything above 8/3 first. Document rationale - 68% of seniors accepted delays when shown this matrix during weekly syncs.