There is a particular kind of workday where you spend so much time explaining how busy you are that you become significantly busier.
At 8:12 a.m., someone asks if you have bandwidth.
At 9:30, you're in a meeting about priorities.
At 11:00, you're discussing which priorities are the priority priorities.
At 1:15, someone wants to “level-set on capacity.”
At 2:30, you're asked to update a tracker documenting everything you haven't had time to do.
At 4:47, someone sends:
Do you have five minutes to sync?
No.
I don't have five minutes.
I used them updating the spreadsheet that proves I don't have five minutes.
And I couldn't help but wonder:
If we're all so busy managing our workload, when exactly are we supposed to do the work?
Bandwidth Is a Fascinating Word
I remember when people were just busy.
Now we have bandwidth.
Capacity.
Resourcing.
Availability.
Utilization.
Workload allocation.
Apparently saying, “I have too much shit to do,” lacked executive presence.
So now someone asks:
“Do you have bandwidth to take this on?”
And this is a dangerous question.
Because technically?
Could I do it?
Probably.
I could also stop sleeping.
Cancel dinner.
Become emotionally unavailable to everyone I love.
There are options.
But somewhere along the way, physically possible became suspiciously close to available.
“It Should Only Take Five Minutes”
This is the workplace equivalent of “I'm five minutes away.”
Nobody believes it.
There are no five-minute tasks.
There are tasks someone else believes take five minutes because they aren't doing them.
“Can you just take a quick look?”
“Can you quickly update this?”
“Can you throw something together?”
“Can you make one tiny change?”
Of course.
Let me simply open the file, remember what we're talking about, find the information, make the change, discover three other things are wrong, message two people for clarification, wait for a response, update it again and upload the final version.
Five minutes.
Absolutely.
Then There Is the Word “Quick”
Quick question.
Quick favor.
Quick sync.
Quick call.
Quick project.
Quick update.
Quick review.
Nothing good has ever followed the word quick in an office.
It's the professional version of someone saying:
“Don't be mad.”
You already know you're about to be mad.
Everyone Is At Capacity, Yet Somehow New Work Keeps Appearing
This is one of the great mysteries of modern employment.
Every person is at capacity.
Every team is stretched.
Everyone's calendar is full.
Nobody has bandwidth.
And yet—
here comes another initiative.
New project!
New process!
New reporting requirement!
New weekly call!
New tracker!
It's remarkable.
Apparently organizations have discovered a renewable resource more powerful than solar energy:
employees who already said they're busy.
The Priority Problem
When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.
We know this.
We've all said it.
We've all nodded when someone else said it.
Then we returned to work and marked nine things URGENT.
Priority one.
Priority one-A.
Top priority.
Immediate priority.
Critical priority.
High visibility.
Time sensitive.
Must-do.
Need by EOD.
At some point, my to-do list stopped being a list and became a hostage situation.
And then someone says:
“Just prioritize.”
Thank you.
Hadn't considered that.
“What Can We Take Off Your Plate?”
This question sounds sexy.
Finally.
Relief.
Support.
Someone sees me.
You begin imagining the possibilities.
Maybe the report.
Maybe the standing meeting.
Maybe that project you've been inexplicably carrying since March.
Then comes the second sentence:
“So you can take this on.”
Oh.
We aren't making the plate lighter.
We're rearranging the appetizers so there's room for another entrée.
And Why Is Everything on a Plate?
We have too much on our plate.
We're taking something off the plate.
We're adding something to the plate.
Our plates are full.
At this point, I don't need workload management.
I need a larger serving dish.
Or perhaps a reservation somewhere else.
The To-Do List Has Started Producing Its Own To-Do List
There was once a beautiful simplicity to writing down what needed to be done.
Now the work needs infrastructure.
There is the project.
Then there is the tracker for the project.
Then the dashboard tracking the tracker.
Then the meeting about the dashboard.
Then the email summarizing the meeting.
Then the follow-up message asking whether you've updated the tracker based on the email summarizing the meeting about the dashboard tracking the project.
I haven't.
I've been busy maintaining the ecosystem surrounding the work.
The actual work is doing terribly.
Productivity Tools Have Become Surprisingly Needy
I thought productivity software was supposed to save time.
Instead, I now have several digital locations where tasks can be forgotten.
Email.
Calendar.
Teams.
Project management software.
Shared documents.
Notes.
Chat.
Some mysterious spreadsheet someone created eight months ago that has somehow become legally binding.
Occasionally, someone asks:
“Did you see my message?”
Which one?
The email?
The chat?
The comment in the document?
The task notification?
The carrier pigeon?
I am reachable in seventeen places and somehow less reachable than ever.
Being Responsive Is Not the Same as Being Productive
This one took me a while.
Because responding feels productive.
Email answered.
Message acknowledged.
Question solved.
Notification cleared.
Little red number gone.
Delicious.
But you can spend an entire day being extremely responsive and accomplish absolutely nothing you intended to accomplish.
You become incredibly efficient at helping everyone else finish their work.
Meanwhile, the thing requiring actual thought sits untouched until 5:16 p.m.
And suddenly everyone has gone home.
Finally.
Peace.
Now you can work.
There is something deeply backwards about needing the workday to end before having enough uninterrupted time to do your job.
The Calendar Has Become a Public Utility
People see white space and assume it is available for development.
An empty hour?
Absolutely not.
That's not availability.
That's where I was planning to think.
But calendars don't recognize thinking.
They recognize meetings.
So unless you protect the time, someone sees 2:00–3:00 and thinks:
Perfect.
They have nothing going on.
I did.
I was going to do my job.
Then Someone Suggests Time Management
This is where things become dangerous.
Maybe you need to manage your time better.
Interesting.
Let's inspect the time.
There are nine meetings.
Thirty-seven emails.
Four “quick” questions.
Two urgent requests that did not exist yesterday.
A lunch eaten while reading Teams.
And a 45-minute presentation about increasing efficiency.
I'm not entirely convinced the problem is my planner.
We Have Romanticized Being Overwhelmed
Ask someone how work is going.
“Crazy.”
“Insane.”
“Swamped.”
“Nonstop.”
“Back-to-back.”
We say these things almost proudly.
Nobody wants to admit:
“Pretty manageable, actually.”
That sounds suspicious.
Do you not have enough responsibility?
Are you not important?
Should we give you something?
Never say you're caught up.
That's how they find you.
Being overwhelmed has somehow become evidence that we're necessary.
And that's a terrible deal.
Because eventually, the reward for proving you can carry everything is that everyone lets you.
Competence Has Terrible Benefits
Being good at your job is wonderful.
Until people notice.
Then strange things begin happening.
You become “the go-to.”
This sounds flattering.
It is not.
“The go-to” means people go to you.
Constantly.
You know how to fix it.
You know where the document is.
You remember what happened last time.
You can handle it.
And because you can handle it, you do.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until one day someone asks about your bandwidth and you realize:
Everyone else is your bandwidth.
Maybe We Don't Need Better Time Management
Maybe we need fewer things.
Fewer unnecessary meetings.
Fewer reports nobody reads.
Fewer “quick” calls.
Fewer priorities pretending they're all emergencies.
Fewer systems documenting work instead of making it easier.
And perhaps fewer conversations about whether people have enough capacity to do things they have repeatedly said they don't have capacity to do.
Sometimes the answer isn't a productivity hack.
Sometimes the answer is:
No.
Not no forever.
Not I don't care.
Not that's beneath me.
Just:
If this is important, something else needs to move.
Which is an incredibly reasonable sentence that somehow feels scandalous in a workplace.
So, About My Bandwidth
I have some.
It's just currently being used.
I have work.
I have deadlines.
I have meetings.
I have people who need things.
I have a personal life I'd like to remain vaguely acquainted with.
And occasionally, I'd like to stare out a window without documenting it as a deliverable.
So the next time someone asks whether I have bandwidth, perhaps I'll skip the corporate vocabulary.
No capacity analysis.
No workload matrix.
No 30-minute sync to discuss my availability.
I'll simply say:
“I can do that. What would you like me to stop doing?”
Because maybe being overwhelmed isn't a personal failure.
Maybe a full plate is simply a full plate.
And I couldn't help but wonder:
If I need another meeting to discuss why I don't have enough time, haven't we just identified the problem?
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