Capacity
08 Nov 2023
Manage Your Capacity, Not Your Time is a really good read by James Steiner.
... it’s not the quantity of time that you are able to juggle, assign and manage that matters, it’s the quality of the time that you are able to spend on your tasks.
Sometimes, I spend only a couple of hours in a deep flow state (this is called my capacity which is a function of my energy levels) and that is satisfying at the end of the day. It is quality over quantity. Staying late in the office is NOT a badge of honor!
I used to spend a lot of time in the office, on emails or just trying to "work". Over time as you grow older and mature you realize that there is a whole new life outside of work. In fact, this energizes you to get your work done in a timely manner so that you have capacity to do the other things that you love!
...regardless of how much autonomy and self-directed time you accumulate, optimal allocation of your capacity is not a box packing problem where you must allocate every single minute of your day. This is an anti-pattern.