Commit 7-8 hours when you have 10 available — leave 2-3…

When This Fires

• When planning your daily time blocks and deciding how much to commit
• When your days consistently run over because every minute was planned
• When you finish the day with half your planned tasks undone despite working steadily
• Complements One 15-minute overflow buffer per 2-3 hours of scheduled… (15-minute overflow buffers) with the macro-level daily slack ratio

Common Failure Mode

100% utilization planning: "I have 10 hours, so I'll plan 10 hours of work." This works perfectly on paper and fails in reality. The first disruption (which is guaranteed on most days) has nowhere to go, so it pushes everything else back. By 3pm you're behind, by 5pm you're abandoning tasks, and by evening you're demoralized by the gap between plan and reality — a gap caused by overcommitting, not underperforming.

The Protocol

(1) Determine your available productive hours for the day (total waking hours minus meals, commute, personal care). For most people, this is 10-12 hours. (2) Commit to 70-80% of that number: if 10 hours available, plan 7-8 hours of specific work. (3) Leave the remaining 2-3 hours as unallocated slack. Do not assign these hours to specific tasks. (4) As the day progresses, use slack for: absorbing overruns, handling unexpected requests, bonus work if the day runs smoothly. (5) Track: what percentage of days used the full slack (disruption-heavy) vs. had surplus (smooth days)? If you're using all the slack every day, either increase slack or reduce commitments. If slack is rarely needed, you might be able to tighten slightly — but err on the side of too much slack rather than too little.