Plan from your average capacity, not your best day — five…
After measuring five days of actual focused work time, use the daily average (not the best day or hoped-for number) as your baseline planning capacity for all future scheduling decisions.
When This Fires
- Setting up a capacity-based planning system for the first time
- After suspecting your planning capacity is unrealistic
- When chronic under-delivery suggests a mismatch between planned and actual capacity
- Recalibrating after a major life or work change (new job, new schedule, new responsibilities)
Common Failure Mode
Using the best day as the baseline: "I did 6 hours on Tuesday, so I should be able to do 6 hours every day." You can't — Tuesday was an outlier. Using the hoped-for number is even worse: "I should be able to do 8 hours of focused work." You've never measured 8, but it feels like what a productive person "should" do. Plan from data, not aspiration.
The Protocol
(1) For five consecutive workdays, track actual focused work time (deep work only, not meetings or admin). Use a timer or time-tracking app for accuracy. (2) Calculate the daily average. (3) Use this average as your planning capacity for all future scheduling: sprint commitments, project estimates, daily plans. (4) Do not adjust upward because it "feels low" — if it feels low, that's your aspiration talking, not your data. (5) Re-measure quarterly or after significant schedule changes.