Budget commitments on two dimensions

When This Fires

• When budgeting capacity for new commitments
• When feeling overwhelmed despite having "free time" on the calendar — cognitive load exceeds time load
• During quarterly commitment reviews when assessing which commitments to keep, modify, or drop
• Complements Audit commitments as actively chosen vs. passively… (resource audit) with the dual-dimension tracking requirement

Common Failure Mode

Time-only budgeting: "I have 5 free hours this week, so I can take on a 3-hour project." If those 5 free hours are the only recovery space in a cognitively maxed-out week, the 3-hour project doesn't cost 3 hours — it costs 3 hours plus the recovery time that was displaced, producing a net cognitive deficit that degrades performance across everything.

The Protocol

(1) For each active commitment, rate two dimensions: Time cost: hours per week consumed (including disruption footprint — Calculate activity cost as disruption footprint). Cognitive cost: mental bandwidth on 1-5 scale (1 = trivial/automatic, 5 = highly demanding/anxiety-producing). (2) Sum both dimensions across all active commitments. (3) Before accepting a new commitment, check both sums: is there remaining time capacity AND cognitive capacity? Both must have room. (4) If time is available but cognitive capacity is maxed → the new commitment would produce the "free time but overwhelmed" pattern. Decline or drop an existing high-cognitive-cost commitment first. (5) Review ratings quarterly: cognitive costs change as commitments become routine (cost decreases) or as contexts become more difficult (cost increases).