Battles
Your cognitive capacity is finite.
This can be experienced as your overall energy, your ability to focus, as well as your capacity to retain information.
Finite cognitive capacity means you do not have infinite ability to fight all the battles.
Some battles are daily: sifting through email, finding passable coffee, navigating organizational complexity.
Some battles are broader: coordinating today’s actions with next year’s strategy, influencing behaviour
change to develop leadership capacity, considering how many kittens or puppies would create a cuteness overload.
As a leader your scope becomes broader over time.
Your responsibilities increase and the breadth of things pulling on your attention grows exponentially.
Your cognitive capacity, however, does not increase at the same pace.
Over time your capacity will increase as your brain develops heuristics and efficiencies.
When you are in a period of navigating increasing scope, remember that your cognitive capacity will take time to adjust.
The opportunity for battles to fight will always exceed your capacity to fight them.
Long weekends, late nights, early coffee,
-Morning Cup