… So of course you crack open a new planner and make BIG plans for what you’ll do this fall now that travel is slowing down, the kids are back to school, and your schedule is predictable.
“I’m going to finally start my YouTube/podcast!”
“I’m finally going to be consistent posting on social media/writing my newsletter!”
“I’m finally going to launch that new program/start pitching podcasts/etc.”
SCREEEECH. Before you do ANY of that, I want you to read this email first.
Many Tuesdays, I listen to Ramit Sethi’s podcast, Money for Couples.
The titles are kind of clickbaity:
“We escaped debt so why are we still spending like this?”
“We own two houses, but can’t afford dinner out.”
But beyond the emotional and relational backstories, the root cause is often the same:
People are overspending because their fixed costs are too high as a proportion of their income.
Fixed costs are the expenses already committed before the month begins: housing, car payments, daycare, insurance, groceries, debt payments, and everything else that predictably needs to be paid.
Many couples on the show have fixed expenses of 90% or more of their take-home pay.
Which means there’s almost no room for anything to go wrong—or even for normal life to happen. A medical bill, a car repair, a trip, or a month with higher spending pushes them over the edge.
They’ve spent the money before the month even starts.
You have fixed costs in your business too.
Your committed capacity is the hours that are already spoken for before you decide what you’re going to build, change, or experiment with this month.
Once you get fully booked, you may already have 50–70% of your time committed to delivery: booked projects, coaching clients, retainers.
If you work 30 hours a week, that’s 15–20 hours of delivery.
Then there’s the recurring marketing.
The weekly newsletter you were told was the "best practice" (3 hours).
The 3x/week thoughtful social posts, reels, or stories (about an hour each for 3 hours).
The commenting "for reach" (~1 hour).
The Sacred Sales Hour you’ve started doing to build relationships because Jessica told you to (the best hour).
The networking calls (some of these are good, others, not so much — 1 hour a week).
The sales calls and follow up (the second best 1 hour a week).
All told, you’ve committed to 10 hours on a regular basis—and that’s without the podcast, guest teaching, pop-up workshop, or whatever else you want to add this season.
Then there’s the essential “run the business” admin that often gets squeezed in between meetings.
Inbox and calendar wrangling, organizing all of your upcoming tasks, bookkeeping and invoicing, and all the other things that make you anxious when they start piling up: call it another 3 hours a week.
And THEN there are the programs you’re in, courses you’re taking, and professional development you’ve committed to: another 2 hours.
You walk into the week with 15+10+3+2 = 30 hours essentially committed.
But wait… you only have 30 hours total, and that’s if everything goes well.
No one gets sick. No emergencies crop up. No kids out of school on a non-standard Wednesday. No margin for surprises, good or bad.
And that’s just to execute on the fixed commitments you already have, not even the business projects you want to do to improve the business.
The eternal challenge for solo experts: you cannot reasonably do the sum of all the individually reasonable things.
When we come back in the fall, it feels like we’re starting fresh. But often we don’t have space to add anything net new—we’re just returning to our pre-existing commitments after a less predictable summer.
What if we could strategically lower our committed capacity?
One, so we actually have margin.
And two, so we can use seasonal sprint times to get focused projects done.
1. Right-size commitments and cadence
As your business gets busier, your fixed commitments should get more intentional—not simply accumulate.
Does this materially contribute to the client result, relationship, or functioning of the business? If not, why are we paying for it every month?
Look at your two biggest capacity commitments: delivery and recurring marketing.
In delivery, can you streamline your pre- and post-session processes? Are you scoped (and paid) for multiple rounds of feedback and hours of async voice memos? Does every interaction need to be live? Are you spending unnecessary time scheduling calls, following up on invoices, or searching for resources you could systematize?
Some of this work is essential to delivering excellent work. Some of it is simply how you started doing things and you’ve never gone back to redesign it.
Then look at your recurring marketing commitments.
Do you need the activity altogether? “Everyone” is setting up ManyChat and leaning into short-form video. Not only do I not need to grow my audience on Instagram for my actual business model, I genuinely don’t have time.
Can you make the commitment shorter? Can you write your newsletter in 3 hours instead of 6? Can that thoughtful 1-hour LinkedIn post become a 15-minute voice-memo riff?
Can you change the cadence? If you’re a high-touch service provider working with fewer than five to ten new clients a year, I firmly believe you don’t need a weekly newsletter. Check out Bev’s calibration cadence assessment.
If I were a high-touch service provider whose delivery inherently took 60%+ of my capacity, my recurring marketing commitments might be:
Sacred Sales Hour and one purposeful networking call a week
A monthly or even quarterly update newsletter for clients, colleagues, and prospects
One strong article or case study a month until I had 10–12 solid pieces, repurposed periodically on LinkedIn
Participation in a handful of aligned communities or networks
Plus, 1-2 guest appearances a quarter.
That could take me from 10 hours of weekly recurring marketing to 3–4 plus guest talks that happen as scheduled.
2. Be strategic (and in some cases, surgical)
If your business model only leaves four hours for recurring marketing, your marketing has to be extraordinarily well-calibrated. You cannot afford random activity anymore.
You only have two coffee chats a week on your schedule? Don’t spend them randomly. Talk to people who are strategically relevant: prospective clients, referral partners, collaborators, people connected to the markets you’re trying to reach.
You’re spending three hours writing a newsletter? It shouldn’t be about one subject while your LinkedIn posting is about another and you’re trying to sell something completely unrelated. One body of thinking should travel across the business at a time.
You want to do guest talks to grow your audience?Use the same 2-3 talks, with the same 2-3 leavebehinds using intellectual property you've already created.
You have three hours a month for networking? Don’t spend all three in communities populated entirely by people who do exactly what you do and are unlikely to hire or refer you. Go where your clients, buyers, partners, and adjacent experts actually are.
When capacity is scarce, your activities need to reinforce each other instead of competing with each other.
3. Sequence your investments
After you’ve reduced the baseline and made it more effective, now you know how much discretionary capacity you actually have. That’s the capacity you can spend on your fall projects.
And I bet it’s only a few hours at a time.
So maybe you do start YouTube or develop and roadshow a new workshop. But that’s the project for fall. You’re not simultaneously starting YouTube, re-writing your home page or welcome sequence, rebranding, increasing LinkedIn to 3x/week, launching a new offer, pitching 20 podcasts, and joining two networking groups.
You can do all of those projects. You just can’t do them all at the same time.
And crucially: don’t automatically turn the successful experiment into another permanent fixed cost. Not every useful marketing project needs to become an ongoing publishing commitment.
Do you really need a newsletter forever? Or could you write 5–10 searchable pillar articles and create an email welcome sequence for new inquiries?
Do you need a weekly ongoing podcast? Or could you create a limited series that shows your point of view—something you can send to new inquiries or point referral partners to?
You’re never really starting “fresh”. You’re always carrying commitments from the last season into this one.
Which, counterintuitively, makes planning easier because you simply have less decisions you need to make.
Most of your capacity has already been committed. Your job is to decide what deserves to stay, make those commitments work harder together, and then deliberately invest the capacity that’s left.
I did this exact exercise for my own fall plans using my new Committed Capacity Calculator, one of the six planning tools available for Members in our Tools Hub!. In this video, I’ll show you my actual capacity, what’s already committed, and what that means I can realistically take on this fall.
And if you want personal guidance figuring out what to cut, what to strengthen, and what to sequence next, the fall Define Your Foundations cohort is enrolling now.
We’ll work together for six months to build the foundations underneath a business that actually fits your capacity — and make better decisions about where your limited time, energy, and attention should go.
There are 5 seats remaining. Email me with Qs or join this week's Open House.
Why We Need a Party for Our Failures with Jess Manuszak
In this episode, we talk with Jess Manuszak, owner of the Denver copywriting studio Verve and Vigour and founder of The Failure Ball, a biannual black-tie event where people get on stage in gowns and crowns and tell the truth about how they failed.
We talk about the difference between the failures we actually caused and the ones the online business world decided to call failures, why the format has to be in-person (and glamorous, and not under fluorescent lights), and how to know when your story belongs on a stage versus in your therapist’s office.
Feeling stuck in one or more areas in your professional or personal life? You know what to do and how to do it, so why aren’t you following through?
You don’t need more motivation or willpower. You need to figure out what’s really holding you back because you can’t change what you can’t see.
In the Immunity to Change Workshop, you’ll follow a powerful 4-step process to uncover hidden reasons you’ve been struggling to make lasting, meaningful changes. You’ll gain a new awareness and clarity about why you’ve been stuck and where to focus your efforts next.
Here's the template. I'll give it to you straight.
Subject line: Their first name. Just their first name. Nothing else.
Body: "Are you still looking for [the thing they inquired about]?"
That's the whole email. No signature. No pitch. No links. No PS with your latest offer.
The temptation you're going to have is to add more to it. You'll want to solve the mystery for people. You'll want to say, "Are you still looking for a house in Georgetown? Because if you are, I've got a deal for you!"
Leaving the Casino:The guide for expert-led business owners who want to build a real business rooted in values, sustainability, and intentional growth.
Deeper Foundations Membership:Access the rhythms, relationships, and resources that make real businesses work. Perfect for learning the foundations or maintaining your momentum.
Define Your Foundations Cohort:The foundational curriculum, coaching, and community if you're ready to stop throwing tactics at the wall and start building real, sustainable foundations. The waitlist is open for September enrollment.