ISSUE #017
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For way too long, I treated a packed calendar like evidence that things were going well. If my week was wall-to-wall meetings, projects, requests, and deadlines, some part of me thought, Well, clearly I’m needed. Clearly important things are happening.
Meanwhile, I was exhausted, stretching everything too thin, and filling any suspiciously open space before it had a chance to become useful.
A full calendar can look impressive. It can also hide a lot.
Busy does not tell you whether the right work is moving
That’s the part I think we miss.
You can spend an entire week in motion and still barely touch the work that actually required your best thinking. Meetings happen. Emails get answered. Problems get handled. People need things from you, and because you’re capable, you keep finding a way to make it all fit.
Then Friday arrives and the one thing you said mattered most is still sitting there.
That is why I don’t find “busy” particularly useful as a measure anymore. It tells me there is activity. It does not tell me whether the work is moving in the right direction, whether the important stuff has enough attention, or whether the current pace is remotely sustainable.
Overcommitment usually happens one reasonable yes at a time
I don’t think most people consciously decide to overload themselves or their teams. The schedule fills slowly.
You take the meeting because it matters. You join the project because you can help. You squeeze in the extra request because it will only take a few minutes. Somebody needs an answer, so you make room.
Each choice makes sense on its own.
The problem shows up when all of those reasonable choices land in the same week.
Eventually, there is no margin left. Then we start treating that as normal.
If your plan only works when nobody gets sick, nothing takes longer than expected, and no surprise problem shows up, the plan is already too full.
Capability and capacity are not the same thing
This one matters a lot for capable people.
There is usually someone on a team who can carry a ridiculous amount. They are dependable, quick, calm under pressure, and good at figuring things out when everything gets messy.
So naturally, we give them more.
I know this because I have been that person, and I have absolutely done it to other capable people too.
The reward for being great at carrying work quietly becomes... more work to carry.
That can work for a while. Sometimes a long while.
But being capable of doing something does not mean you have reasonable capacity to take it on.
Those are different questions.
Your available capacity needs room for real life
We tend to plan capacity like a spreadsheet.
Here are the hours. Here are the people. Here is the work. Great, it technically fits.
Except humans are not spreadsheets.
Something will take longer than expected. A conversation will turn into an issue. A project will get more complicated halfway through. Somebody will be out. Something completely unplanned will become legitimately important.
When every hour and every person is already committed at 100%, normal life starts looking like failure.
That is why I’ve stopped treating open space like wasted capacity.
Some of that space is what makes the plan actually usable.
Look at what your busyness is pushing out
If you want to know whether you’re overcommitted, I wouldn’t start by counting meetings.
I’d look at what keeps getting squeezed out.
Which important work only happens after hours because there is no room for it during the day? What requires real thinking but keeps getting shoved between meetings? Which projects keep moving because one dependable person quietly catches whatever drops?
Also, pay attention to the quality of the work.
What are you doing worse simply because there is too much happening at once? Which conversations are rushed? Which decisions are being made reactively because nobody has enough room to think?
Those are capacity signals.
Stop solving every capacity problem with “Can we make it work?”
This question has gotten me into trouble more than once because capable people can make almost anything work for a little while.
Need another project added? Sure, we can figure it out.
Need the deadline moved up? We’ll make it happen.
Need the same five people to absorb something else? Somehow, yes.
The better question is:
If we add this, what moves?
That forces the tradeoff into the open.
If this needs to happen now, what gets less attention? If the team is already carrying the current plan, where is the capacity for the new thing supposed to come from? If nothing moves, are we actually making a decision... or just hoping everyone stretches?
I like those questions better because they make the constraint visible.
An open hour is not automatically a problem
This was probably one of the hardest things for me to internalize.
If I saw open time, I wanted to use it.
Why leave an hour sitting there when something could fit?
Because sometimes that hour is where thinking happens. Sometimes it absorbs the thing that ran long. Sometimes it gives you enough breathing room to deal with something unexpected without blowing up the rest of the day.
And sometimes a person with a little room left in their week is simply... appropriately loaded.
Not underutilized.
Not slacking.
Not waiting for another assignment.
Just working at a pace that leaves enough capacity to do the work well.
Build around the humans you actually have
This is the standard I keep coming back to.
Not the imaginary team with unlimited focus. Not the version of you who never gets tired. Not the week where absolutely everything goes according to plan.
The humans you actually have.
Their time. Their attention. Their responsibilities outside the neat little project plan. Their ability to think, solve problems, respond to change, and occasionally have a day where their brain is just not giving 100%.
So if your calendar is packed and everybody looks incredibly busy, I would not automatically call that success.
I’d ask what is actually moving.
I’d ask what is getting pushed out.
And I’d ask whether there is enough room left for reality.
Because your calendar is full. So what?
Cheers to getting unscattered,
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