You Don’t Have a Productivity Problem. You Have a Capacity Problem.

What if the reason you’re overwhelmed isn’t that you’re doing it wrong, but that the system is working exactly as intended?

Dispatches From the Quiet Rebellion.

Notes from the field. Reflections for Rebels navigating change with clarity, courage, and consciousness. These essays go beyond tips or tactics. They track what I’m noticing in myself, in my coaching work, and in the cultural moment we’re all moving through. Want to read more Dispatches? You can find the full series here: https://coachwithnicholas.substack.com/t/dispatches

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I should have known better.

And yet, I also want to name this with compassion: we do the best we can with the information we have, given the context we're in. I didn't have the language then. I didn't have the perspective. I was doing what most of us do...trying to survive while believing I just needed to push a little harder, be a little better, hang on a little longer.

For years inside the pressure cooker of big tech, I used to think the problem was time management. Or maybe it was focus. Or maybe I just needed better boundaries, better self-care, better habits, mindfulness practice.

But the truth is, no amount of optimization saved me. It took a full mental health collapse and a layoff to learn it in my bones, though deep down I knew it all along.

Because the problem wasn’t how I worked. The problem was capacity, and being in an environment that didn't set me up for success.

And the productivity gurus will try to convince you otherwise. They’ll sell you hacks and frameworks, and endless morning routines to help you squeeze out just a little more output. So you can... work more. So you can produce more. So you can keep feeding the same machine that’s already draining you.

That’s not liberation. That’s late-stage capitalism fucking with you.

What we need isn’t more optimization. We need a reckoning.

A shift in how we relate to work. To the rapid pace of technology. To distraction.

Reclaiming capacity is about declaring sovereignty over your time, your energy, and your attention...so you can focus on what matters. So you can live aligned with your values. So you can stay conscious in a system that rewards disconnection.

This is quiet rebellion.

In the final stretch of my time at Google, I had already tried everything: Role changes, time management strategies, meditation, mental health days, even carefully curated mini vacations and “quit quitting” as it was called at the time.

On paper, I was doing all the right things. But in reality, my capacity was gone. Not just low...absent.

I was in a toxic environment and couldn’t name it at the time. I thought it was me. Thought I needed to be more efficient. More resilient. More regulated. I didn’t really know where I was.

But what I really needed was out.

Eventually, the collapse came. My nervous system shut down. My clarity vanished. I took three and a half months off to recover, and in the end, I can back to a poor performance review and eventually I was laid off. That experience likely cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost compensation.

And yet, it gave me so much more.

Because that was the moment that I finally stopped optimizing and started listening. That was the beginning of the Quiet Rebellion in me.

I know what it’s like to live on the edge of collapse and pretend things are fine. I know what it costs to ignore what your body already knows.

So this isn’t theory. It’s lived experience. And it’s why I care so deeply about capacity...not as a concept, but as a practice of self compassion.

And you don’t have to wait for collapse.

You don’t have to hit a breaking point to justify a change. You can start by paying attention. The symptoms are already there: the scattered focus, the tension in your chest, the calendar that makes you feel like a machine.

Small decisions matter. Tiny shifts compound like interest over time. When you invest in your time and attention, even in small amounts, you create a kind of internal savings account that builds capacity over time. This is your real hedge against uncertainty and rapid change.

Capacity in reserves isn't selfish, it's a public service. It’s there for when it’s really needed for the important stuff. So people can truly count on you to be steady and have the capacity to lead in times of uncertainty.

And yes, if you wanted to, you could put a dollar figure on it. What do you get paid per hour? How many hours are spent reacting, task-switching, over-delivering on things that don’t actually matter? What’s the opportunity cost of distraction? What’s the revenue loss of misalignment?

Since we live in a capitalist system, let’s use that yardstick for a moment. The math is sobering.

But there’s another cost...one that doesn’t show up in spreadsheets.

The cost of not having time for meaningful work. The cost of missing the moments that actually connect us to our lives. The cost of not creating, not playing, not being fully here.

If we’re spending more than half of our waking hours working, and that work keeps us disconnected from what we value, what does that really say about our priorities?

What Is Capacity?

Capacity is your inner bandwidth. Your ability to recognize where you are, get curious about what you need, and make an active choice.

It’s not just about how much you can hold. It’s about how resourced you are to respond to life, work, and leadership without losing yourself in the process.

Why Capacity Matters

This is why capacity matters. Not just for productivity. But for presence. For creativity. For aliveness

Time x Energy x Attention = Capacity

We don’t just need to manage capacity. We need to reclaim it.

Because here’s the truth: we can’t do the deeper work (the real work of conscious leadership) from a place of depletion.

In times of uncertainty, we don’t just need efficiency.

We need self-awareness. Self-compassion. We need leaders who can understand their own internal patterns, and who can hold space for others without projecting their pain or outsourcing their worth.

This kind of leadership requires capacity. It requires space.

Because executive function (the part of your brain responsible for decision-making, emotional regulation, and long-term thinking) can’t operate when your system is overloaded. Chronic stress and depletion impair executive function and, over time, may lead to structural changes in the prefrontal cortex. You’re not just tired. Your ability to access clarity, regulation, and decision-making has been biologically constrained.

Attention isn’t infinite. It’s a limited neurobiological resource, as shown by researchers like Daniel Kahneman and Sophie Leroy who found that scattered focus leaves behind a kind of cognitive residue that impairs our ability to think clearly and act intentionally. And energy isn’t just about rest, it’s about the resilience of your nervous system to handle complexity without collapse.

The good news? Capacity is trainable. Neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire) means that with practice, you can restore clarity, presence, and discernment. But only if you’re willing to stop pretending that grinding, hustle and managing by fear is leadership.

And here’s another thing about capacity: your capacity doesn’t just affect you. It shapes how you lead, how you respond, how you relate.

What happens to your team when your capacity drops below the line? What signals are you sending when you show up stretched too thin? How much alignment is lost (not just in your calendar, but in your culture) when you’re reacting instead of leading?

What the Research Says

Models like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs make this obvious. We can’t self-actualize when we’re stuck in survival. Viktor Frankl is often misquoted as saying: that between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space is our power to choose. But thanks to Stephen R. Covey for popularizing the idea.

And more recently, thinkers like Bessel van der Kolk, Gabor Maté, and Lisa Feldman Barrett have helped us understand that trauma, stress, and emotional dysregulation don’t just live in the mind…they live in the body, and they directly impact our capacity to lead, relate, and adapt. Their work reminds us that reclaiming capacity isn’t just about mindset, it’s about nervous system repair, relational awareness, and creating environments that support wholeness.

So this isn’t new. But it is urgent.

We’re moving through a moment in history marked by unprecedented speed: technological, economic, cultural. The velocity of change is only increasing, and the systems we operate in aren’t slowing down. They’re speeding up. AI adoption, geopolitical instability, economic precarity, climate disruption…these aren’t abstract forces. They shape our nervous systems, our calendars, our capacity.

That’s why this work matters now more than ever. Because if we don’t learn how to reclaim and protect capacity, we’ll keep getting pulled under by the pace. And the cost (individually, organizationally, and collectively) will keep growing.

This isn’t just urgent. It’s foundational.

But you can’t access that space if you’re running on empty.

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Reflection Prompts:

Where are you spending time, energy, or attention in ways that drain rather than nourish you?

What small shift (today, this hour, this moment) could begin to reclaim that capacity?

What would change if you stopped earning your worth through depletion?

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If you want to explore this further:

The work of reclaiming capacity runs through everything I create from Case Logs like The Overfunctioning People Pleaser and The Exhausted Engine that help you spot the survival patterns you’ve been living in without realizing it.

To Field Manuals on values, boundaries, and attention or my other dispatches on topics like mental health, high performance and using nature as a guide.

You’ll find practical frameworks, real stories, and the quiet truths high performers rarely admit out loud.

Want more perspectives?

Others have explored this terrain too. Productivity thinkers like Anne-Laure Le Cunff (with her TEA framework: Time, Energy, Attention). But here’s where my model differs:

I treat capacity as multiplicative…not additive. When one element drops to 0, the whole system collapses. And I don’t separate the personal from the systemic. This isn’t just about better habits. It’s about sovereignty in a world that profits from your depletion.

Tools

If you want to start exploring this in your own life, I’m building a 48-hour audit tool that helps you assess where your capacity is being drained. It invites you to notice how your time, energy, and attention are being spent across two typical days - and what that reveals about your current patterns.

There’s also a beta version of a deeper, weeklong tool I’m developing. It walks you through tracking your full schedule, your energetic highs and lows, and where your attention drifts… so you can realign your days through intentional time blocking and focused restoration. This is the work of reclaiming your capacity, one hour at a time.

👉 If you’re interested in beta testing this tool, message me or comment below and i’ll get you into the waiting list.

The Call

If you’ve been treating this like a productivity problem…
If you’ve tried the hacks, the planners, the Pomodoro timers…
If you’re still exhausted, distracted, and disconnected…

It’s not your fault.
It’s a capacity problem.

You’re maxed out in a system that keeps asking for more.

You don’t need to overhaul your life overnight.
You just need to start paying attention to where your time, energy, and attention are leaking.

Start by reclaiming an hour.
A breath.
A boundary.

Let it compound.

Or if you’re ready to go deeper and get some support, book a Clarity Call and we’ll map it together.

This isn’t about doing more.
It’s about remembering your capacity is sacred.

You’re Not Alone

If it feels familiar, you’re not alone. You’re not crazy. You’re not behind. You’re just living in a world that never taught you how to protect what matters most.

And now you’re learning. That’s the quiet rebellion.

Be rebellious!

In Solidarity ✊
Nicholas Whitaker, Human BE-ing and Conscious Leadership Coach
nicholaswhitaker.com
Co-founder @ Changing Work
Follow me on Substack & LinkedIn

*This piece was created in collaboration with AI as part of my ethical commitment to transparency in creative work. Level 3 – Human-AI Collaboration “Assembled with AI support. Human voice, values, and editing throughout.” All final words, edits, and ideas reflect my lived experience and point of view.