Capacity Is Not The Problem

“I’m out of capacity” can sound like a fact, but it often acts like a shield. We kick off with birthday-level honesty and then dig into what overload really means at work: not just too many tasks, but unclear priorities, fuzzy definitions of performance, and a habit of confusing motion with value.

We talk about why capacity studies and time tracking can be misleading when the biggest time drains never get written down, from “chewing the fat” to distraction and context switching. Then we pivot to a more grounded approach: look at a normal week on your calendar, find the unscheduled hours, and ask what outcomes that time actually produced. If you cannot explain where the time went, you do not have a capacity problem, you have a focus problem.

We also unpack “wasted excellence,” where a person’s quality bar (like checking the same work four times) quietly eats the day without improving results. From there, we zoom out to organizational priorities that evolve over time, including the hard truth that some work people love simply stops being valuable. Finally, we connect it to the bigger reality: change is speeding up, and adaptability is no longer optional.

If you want practical, no-nonsense insight on capacity planning, time management, prioritization, and high performance, press play. 

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Transcript

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Birthday Banter And A Trigger Topic

Karman 0:30

Well, happy birthday, Scott. Woohoo! Happy birthday to you. And welcome, Tammy. And you know, and Tammy too. Yeah, but it's Scott's birthday. You know.

Scott 0:45

You look like I I just assumed you were both gonna like say you look like a monkey and you smell like one too, right? Isn't that how you finish the happy birthday?

Speaker 1 0:52

If I finished the song, I would have finished it just like that. Yeah, because we love you so much.

Karman 1:00

Well, because it's your birthday, Scott, I wanted to pick a topic that would be something that really riles you up. And so I've been thinking about this for a while, planning this for your birthday, because I know whenever this topic comes up, you you know, you get excited in a like a Scott kind of excited way.

Speaker 1 1:22

Zero to 60 in a nanosecond? Yeah, right. Oh, I love these days.

Karman 1:26

Okay, let's see what happens. Yeah. So so Scott, when people talk about being out of capacity, oh no.

Scott 1:39

What

What “Out Of Capacity” Really Means

Scott 1:39

does that mean? What does that mean?

Karman 1:41

What what does that mean?

Scott 1:42

It means they're whiny little bitches. Tell me more about that, Scott. Yeah, no, it's I I'm laughing because I was a guest on a podcast yesterday.

Speaker 1 1:55

We talked about your favorite topic two days in a row. Did they really like did they know that you were this was a triggering topic for you?

Scott 2:07

They had no idea. Yeah, and so you know, I I I'll say what I said there. It's it's what I find is it's an excuse to either distract from the lack of performance or lack of prioritization. And it's interesting because we I am finding more and more that people are defining performance as I got the task done, I checked the thing off, I handed it over to Tammy, or I handed it over to Karman. And that to me is half, and probably not even the most important half. The other half is did it add value? Did it get an outcome? Did it actually like do whatever it was supposed to do? So I I think, and then it's interesting because when we say we're out of capacity, that means I can't get something done, or I'm saying I can't get something done. Something additional, yeah, something additional, or hey, that's too much, or whatever that is. And and I think there is just a reality. The reality is, and people have probably heard me say this there is, I cannot envision a day where all the work is done. I mean, if you just I mean, just the reality is there's always something to do. So now it's more about an activity of am I prioritizing the right things and am I am I getting them done and getting the outcome it needs to get? That to me separates a high performer versus a mediocre versus um a whiny little bitch.

Why Capacity Studies Mislead Leaders

Speaker 1 3:48

Well, one of the pieces about that, Scott, to to actually kind of build on it for me. We hear a lot, this is this is a very, very normal complaint. It has become, it wasn't necessarily around 20 years ago. We didn't hear people talking about this in the same way 20 years ago, but it is a way that people now it is an excuse that organizations are like taking seriously. And then the organization does a capacity study, and the way they do the capacity study is they say things like this track your hours, okay, and turn them in, right? Tell us what you're working on. Now, there's not a single human being on the planet that when you track your own work that you put in, hey, I spent 20 minutes blowing smoke with Scott talking about fill in the blank. And a really good example is when we go to record this podcast, right? We get together, and there's never a time period that we don't spend 15 minutes just blowing smoke, right? We blow smoke for at least 15 minutes.

Karman 4:55

Maybe doesn't mean we we are smoking a cigarette, you know.

Speaker 1 4:59

No, it means we're talking about talking about whatever crap we want to talk about that has nothing to do with the podcast and usually nothing to do with work, right? I mean, we're just you know chewing the fat. And no one puts on their their self-study, time study, you know. I spent 15 minutes, you know, chewing the fat with somebody. No one puts down, I spent 30 minutes complaining about the boss. No one puts down that, you know, I actually got lost in the middle of I was supposed to be, you know, looking something up. So I'm out on the internet working on stuff, and no one I got lost on that article that popped up that was about, you know, Britney Spears. I mean, you know, we don't put that stuff down. And the fact of the matter is, is every single one of us does that. So now somebody's complaining, the organization says, okay, let's see, are you over capacity? We write down everything that we do, we turn it into upper management, and sure as heck, we are over capacity. But you have all of the chew in the fat stuff that no one wrote down. The other thing that we don't write down is stuff that actually adds value to the organization, quote unquote. However, I've chosen to do task Z, which is the least priority, not as important, or whatever that is, instead of doing task A. And that's the other thing. It's like I did the one I wanted to do instead of the one that actually would have the most value, because the one that's most value is hard and task Z is easy. It's the thing I want to do, or I'd like to do, or I think it's more important. So that's a big push to me in terms of how they're spending their time. You know, yeah, are they busy? But how are they spending their time?

Time Studies And The Reality Check

Scott 6:45

They're busy being busy. You know, I think I keep thinking back, like, okay, what what drove me this way? You know, I remember clearly when I worked at Bridgestone, we had industrial engineers and we did time studies, and we did time studies on all jobs, all the time, all the time, and there was actually language in the union contract that said, here's how you do it, and here's how much data you need. And here's the like there was a percentage that you added for the fluff time. Because you know, when you go watch someone, they're gonna be more diligent, more like, and so there was a like I call it the reasonableness to say, okay, yeah, you're gonna have bathrooms in there, and you're gonna have the machine is gonna break sometimes, you know. And if you didn't witness any of that during that time, you know, you can't base your your time, like it would to me, it was super reasonable.

Speaker 1 7:38

And the piece about fluff time too is to say, is it really wrong for us to have 15 minutes of chewing the fat? I mean, come on, this is we're human beings, so we're not saying you have to work like every second of every day, have your head down. So some of that fluff time should be in there, yeah, realistically, yeah.

Scott 7:55

Yeah, and so what part of what I learned was when I would have teammates like complain and say, Oh, we're over, I would always ask, and the union steward knew when I asked this question, I usually left the room so they could talk about it before they gave me the answer. I said, Well, you know, if you really think we'll do it, like we can do a time study to verify, totally fine. And I'd say, Hey, you guys talk about it now, come back. And not once did they say, Yes, let's do that, because they knew whenever it was validated, it would usually end up in you're overstaffed. And so I like I would let like if we will, if we really, if you really think we need to do that, we'll do that. Just you just you all think about it and let me know. And the the my my modern day version of that is it still is one of my favorite activities. Go to your phone, go back three weeks and look at your calendar. And and I am gonna, I always ask, like, let's make sure that that's kind of a normal week, not a week you're on vacation or something weird, you were at a conference or whatever. Let's like, was that a normal week? Okay, how many hours were you unscheduled? And what I'm finding is generally people are unscheduled six to 12 hours a week. And so I say, What did you do at that time? And they can't. What can you do that you have added value? And usually they're like, I don't know what I did that, what that, which means you allowed yourself to waste that time. I'm sure you did something being busy, so don't tell me you're out of capacity, you're not prioritizing. And I have had many conversations with people that I'm okay having a conversation with someone if they're like, I'm I'm out of capacity, I'm like, cool, what's on your plate? Let's look at your list. And what do you think is I think I should do this, this, and this. If you can't bring that to me, then you have forfeited the right to choose what you work on, and I'm going to give you your tasks every day. Every morning, and we're gonna go through it, and I'm gonna say these are the three things you need to accomplish today.

Speaker 1 10:13

I love the fact that on Scott's birthday, he gets to be a controlling oh yeah.

Scott 10:19

Well, and and I don't want to do that, I really don't want to do that. I want them to like, hey, use your freaking brain to say what's the most important and how do you problem solve this? Because we all have this problem, and then you just I mean, we're just talking about work now. Add in family stuff that you have on there. Oh, I have to be to dinner at 6:30 tonight for whatever, or I have to take, you know, I have to run this errand because the post office closes at five and I gotta make sure I mail this pack. Like we all have those things, and so you seem to be able to prioritize your whole life to get Tommy and Sally to soccer practice on two different fields on the same day in the morning. Why the hell can't you do that at work?

Karman 11:03

Is that conversation ever about agreeing on what might not get done?

Scott 11:12

Yeah, I I think you can either, I mean, you're either going to do that directly or indirectly, right? So you're gonna say, hey, let's put these things aside, or you're gonna say, hey, focus on these these things. And then, yeah, that means whatever else is down here on the list.

Speaker 1 11:30

Well, and let me give you an example of

Perfectionism That Steals Real Outcomes

Speaker 1 11:32

that. I worked with an executive years ago now, and this executive, uh you know, predictive index has a very, very high D. D means precise, it means every, you know, T has to be crossed, every I has to be dotted. And there's a lot of perfectionism, right, in that particular spot. And this particular executive was in charge of communications. That was this person's job. And they were saying, you know, I need more staff because I can't get everything done. And this is a small enough organization that as an executive, you know, still leading the department and doing a good portion of the work, which I think is, you know, really a normal thing, right? And so we were talking about the fact that she was just like she was underwater. And so I just started to asking her questions and having her to explain her day to me so that I could understand how she was using her time. And she was talking about, you know, going back and checking her work. And as we talked it through, she said, Yeah, I go back and I check my work four times. And I said, four times. And she said, Oh yeah. She said, you know, so if I write something and then I set it aside, go on to another task, and then I check it. And she said, I check it four times because I just want to make sure there are zero errors. And I said, That sounds like a lot of checking. And she's like, Yes, but I can't make any errors. And I said, When you make errors, are they errors like they're really big things like people come back and screaming out because your data's wrong? She's like, Oh no, there's no, there's yeah, there are no, there are usually no really big errors or anything, but I just want to make sure. Well, guys, let's talk about that for just a minute, right? Checking something four times is a decision that she made to say, that's my level of quality. And the question is, is that level of quality necessary and required for getting the outcomes that they needed? Right. And that was a conversation that I had with this person, and we finally decided we would try to just check it twice. So we're cutting it in half. This was something that this person was unwilling to actually do. So they would do it when I asked. It was like, how many times did you check that? How many times you checked that? How many times did you check that? They were unwilling to do it unless I was on them. They had to check it four times. Now, we could talk about whether or not that is um, you know, a mental health issue, or we could talk about the fact that in all honesty, this person was doing something that took time that did not add value to the organization. Because when we checked it twice, over the course of a year, the things that she checked twice, there were two errors in them, in that, and they were both commas. Does life end as we know it because she missed a comma? I don't think so, right? The people who were reading these messages, which were clients that they served, right? No one said a word, and I wouldn't have known that those commas should have been there.

Karman 14:44

They probably didn't even know the difference.

Speaker 1 14:46

Yeah, she knew, right? And Karman, you're an editor, right? This is one of your skill sets, you might have known. But what part of the population knows actually where commas should be? Pretty small. Now, what's really cool is we have AI now, so we can send it through uh in that particular spot, but four times. So that's a place where, yeah, some things get dropped because they don't add as much value to the organization. So that's an extreme example, okay. However, there are many things in an organization that people do that actually don't help the organization succeed. And those things absolutely should be dropped. And when we have these conversations, it's oftentimes the things that people really, really, really, really want to do.

Scott 15:38

Yeah, many times it's personal preference.

Letting Go Of Old Priorities

Karman 15:41

I'm I'm thinking about a number of years ago when an organization that I worked in got rid of its public-facing customer service phone numbers. If you called the number, you know, some it would still go to somebody, but the numbers were no longer published. Like you there wasn't really a way for somebody to find that number. And you know, the the message was we don't want to spend our company resources on the kinds of queries that come in through these numbers. But the staff that traditionally provided the customer service was like really invested in delivering that level of like, you called and asked me a question, and I spent two days researching, you know, what the answer was. And like at one time that was a badge of honor for the organization, and it was no longer a priority. And um, I think that's the other thing that you guys have talked about running into is places where it's sort of personal preference, it may also be operating on an old set of priorities that somebody's not willing to let go of.

Speaker 1 17:13

Yeah, the transition. And think about that. I was really good at that. Okay, I got kudos for that. I actually took the job because I've truly loved to do that research and then be able to answer that person's question and have them be so happy that we, our company, cared enough about that person to spend this time, right? And now you're saying I don't have value. And that is a piece of this, because in all honesty, people who spend that time in that wasted excellence space, maybe it was a priority or maybe whatever that is, they're doing it because they're saying, This is my way of adding value. This is important, and getting aligned with what is you know important to the organization instead of what is important to you. We see this at every level. I mean, we see this in C-suites where they say, hey, this is a strategic plan, what's most important? And you ask them, in fact, I just did that exercise with the C-suite this week, and you can see here are their flip charts, and they don't line up. Why? Because it's only their department's priority, it's not the organizational priority, and so now we have push and shove going on in the rest of the organization. So again, where do we spend our time? So this capacity issue sometimes goes all the way to the top. If I have time today, where should I put it?

Scott 18:44

And

Faster Change Demands Adaptability

Scott 18:45

this element of organizations and the things organizations, all of that is going to continue to evolve and it's only gonna evolve at a faster rate.

Speaker 1 18:55

What is that stat, Scott, in terms of change? How much is it changing again right now?

Scott 19:00

So if you use 2020 as a baseline, I and I'll probably be a little bit off, but if you look at like in 2023, it was like four times the pace of 2020. It's 10 times the pace today in 2026. It's estimated at like 20 or 30 times faster in 2030.

Speaker 1 19:24

So this thing where you know we're like slow down, this thing where you know too much is happening at the same time. Sometimes we want to blame the organization on that. Reality, it's kind of our world, and this change readiness spot, change resiliency spot is more important than ever. And that also plays into this capacity piece. People are like, hey, I need to catch up. And part of it is that they have there's a new skill that they're just gonna have to learn, and it's not one that a lot of us want to learn.

Scott 19:56

We as as individuals, we're doing a disservice to ourselves when we don't prepare for that, and as a leader, we're doing a disservice to our team and our organization if we're not preparing people for that.

Speaker 1 20:10

Weird, weird thing. So, I you guys know I'm a person of faith. Something came up yesterday in the book of James, and they're talking about being able to adapt, and it was like the New Testament talks about adapting, changing, shifting, and the answer is yes. And I was like, holy moly, that never occurred to me. If we talked about it that long ago, that kind of setting, that actually we need to figure out how to roll with the punches, and that is, I think, one of the pieces of why we hear this capacity message all the time, is because people don't know how to roll with the punches, they don't know how to flex and adapt, and they kind of get stuck in something and it keeps them from being able to move. And ultimately, that capacity word is oftentimes our way that says, Can I just stay here? I don't want to change. I don't want to go through this thing. Okay. Instead of saying, I actually need to do this because it's good for me, it's good for my team, it's good for the people that we serve, and ultimately it's good for the organization.