This story is beautifully told in the Personal Kanban book. You can also come to our webinar or our workshop in December)
The thumbnail up there has a pic of me, my brother, my dad, and our dog Cookie. Likely taken in 1977.
Cookie was an expert food catcher and could catch nearly anything short of a whole turkey if you tossed it to her. She was extremely productive, effective, and efficient. But she had a capacity. She had a system you could work with, or break.
Throw her one cocoa puff? Caught it. Perfect.
Throw two? Caught both. Still winning.
Throw three? She’d get two, one would drop. Starting to struggle, but mostly okay.
Throw four? She’d catch one. Miss three. Now she’s frustrated.
Throw five? She might catch one, but might.
Throw a huge handful at her? Complete meltdown. She’d catch nothing, just wave her head like a Muppet, jaw wide open, overwhelmed while cocoa puffs bounced off her nose, forehead, or fly by. Then she’d make an annoyed snarf-sound and eat them off the floor.
This is you. This is all of us. We’re Cookie with too many cocoa puffs.
Cookie Had No Boundaries
Cookie was suffering from too much work being forced on her by bosses that didn’t care about her overload. Or, in the case of my brother and I, actively amused. We’d actively test her. 1 … 1.. 1. … HANDFULL. When you are 12 and 8 this is endlessly funny. Well, the end was running out of cocoa puffs.
Later, my mother would be like, “Why do I keep finding cocoa puffs in the family room? Are you guys just throwing them around?!” Yes, yes we were.
So cookie didn’t have a system for managing incoming cocoa puffs. Neither do you.
Every day, commitments come at you:
“Can you do this?”
“We need you on this project”
“Quick favor?”
“One more thing?”
Emails, messages, requests, emergencies
And what do we do? We say yes. Because:
We don’t want to disappoint people
We believe we “should” be able to handle it
There’s no system evaluating whether we actually can
Saying no feels like weakness
We have no visibility into what we’re already juggling
So we say yes to everything. And then we become Cookie with a handful of cocoa puffs—catching nothing, finishing nothing, disappointing everyone.
Yes Beats No
If you want to annoy people, set up a Personal Kanban because you want to “say no” more effectively. We hear this often but that’s not actually what we want. We don’t wake up thinking “I wish I could disappoint more people.”
When you are overloaded, you’ll take all the work on, but like Cookie, you’ll be eating it off the floor and Jennifer will be annoyed with a Hoover full of cereal she bought and no one will eat.
If you want to make work better for everyone, say yes effectively.
To say: “Yes, I can do this. And here’s when I can realistically do it.”
Cookie Capacity Calculator
Your capacity is finite. Let’s say Cookie can catch 2-3 cocoa puffs reliably.
When she has 2-3 cocoa puffs in the air? She catches them all. High success rate. Repeat performance. Build reputation.
When she has 5+ cocoa puffs in the air? She catches maybe 1. Misses most. Looks incompetent. Loses trust.
Let’s torture this analogy like we’re still pre-teens: Cookie limiting herself to 2-3 cocoa puffs gets MORE cocoa puffs overall because she finishes what she catches. People trust her, they throw more, she keeps succeeding. We are figuring out the capacity.
Cookie trying to catch a handful gets ZERO cocoa puffs overall but people can’t process that. Surely you’d always catch a few? They will overload her for hours on end trying to figure out why Cookie “isn’t catching any anymore”.
This is your career. Your reputation. Your sanity.
Limited WIP (work-in-progress) = higher delivery = more opportunity = more success.
Unlimited WIP = catching nothing = disappointing everyone = burnout.
You Lie to You
When you are overloaded, you internalize that load and then compensate by doing more. People invariably respond to overload with overload. When you’re running way above capacity, it doesn’t feel like “catching nothing.” It feels like:
Constantly working (checking email at 10pm)
Always stressed (something’s always falling through cracks)
Lower quality (you’re too fragmented to do good work)
More mistakes (brain is juggling too many things)
Inability to focus (constant context-switching)
Guilt (you’re letting people down despite working constantly)
This feels like your personal failure. Like you’re not working hard enough. Like you should be able to handle this.
But this is systemic … it is the system (the 12 and 8 year olds) throwing work at you and you’re like “why can’t I catch this…food I shouldn’t be eating in the first place because I’m a dog and dogs aren’t supposed to eat Cocoa Puffs.”
You don’t have a gate. You have no way to evaluate incoming work against actual capacity. So everything gets added. And everything suffers.
What Changes When You Build Triggers
Triggers are things that cause you to act : It’s how you decide what comes in and when. Believe it or not, Personal Kanban is not about tracking your work. We designed it to tell you what to do about your work. It’s a triggering system. “What is the right thing for me to be doing right now? And What is Not?”
Step 1: See the load you’re already carrying
Write down everything you’re currently doing. Put it on a board or list:
OPTIONS (things you’ve committed to but haven’t started)
DOING (things you’re actively working on)
DONE (things you’ve finished)
Now count what’s in DOING. That’s your current WIP.
Step 2: Set your realistic limit
Look at that DOING pile. What’s honest? Can you really juggle 5 things? Or are you Cookie with too many cocoa puffs?
Most people discover they’re actually at 10 to 18 things when they think they’re doing 2 or 3.
Set a real limit. Maybe it’s 2. Maybe it’s 4. Pick something honest.
Step 3: Manage the incoming
New request comes in: “Can you do this?”
No triggers to help us control our work means we say, “Yeah, yeah, sure” (adds it to the pile in DOING immediately)
With triggers that show what you are doing and what is coming up… “I’d love to. I’m currently working on X, Y, and Z. You’d be #4 in my queue. I can start on this [realistic date] and finish by [realistic date]. Does that work?”
Now people have real expectations. You have capacity. Everyone wins.
Step 4: Watch what actually happens
You finish things (dopamine hit, momentum)
Quality improves (you’re not fragmented)
People trust you (you deliver what you promise)
Stress decreases (you’re not drowning)
You get more respect (limited delivery > chaotic chaos)
Ironically, you get MORE opportunities (people trust you)
You’re not doing less. You’re accomplishing more because what you do is actually complete.
The Permission You’re Looking For
Humans can only do so much. You are human. You’re allowed to have limits. You’re allowed to have realistic capacity. You’re allowed to say yes in a way you can actually deliver.
Cookie knew this. She caught cocoa puff and was excited or she’d make the snarf-sound and cleaned them up. You can do the same with your commitments.
The only catch here is you have to build the system yourself. Your cocoa puffs won’t self-regulate.
Want to go deeper? Read Personal Kanban to learn the full system. Take the Personal Kanban class to build your gate system with support. Join the webinar or the workshop to understand WIP limits at scale.
Because unlimited cocoa puffs are a choice. And a bad one.
Choose better.
