About 10 minutes

The capacity check

You will have a two minute daily check that sets your day to protection, steady or expansion, in your own words.

What this is

Capacity is a design constraint, not a nice-to-have. The check that comes before any task is called Block 0: what can you actually hold today?

You will talk for ten minutes about your real limits. You get a two minute check you can run each morning. It tells you what kind of day this is and what to drop or add.

Before you start

You need an AI assistant with a voice mode, ten minutes and nothing else. On a low day, answer the first question, then say "stop" and let it write what it has. The check can be rough. You will refine it.

The prompt

I am a neurospicy founder (ADHD, autistic, or otherwise neurodivergent). I run my own business. I want to start my days from my real capacity, not from my to-do list. We are going to spend about ten minutes building my capacity check. It is a short daily check that sets each day to one of three modes: protection, steady or expansion.

How to run this:
- Ask me one question at a time. Wait for my answer before you ask the next.
- I am talking, not typing. My answers will be messy, out of order and unfinished. Take them as they come and sort them yourself. Do not ask me to rephrase.
- Keep each question short enough to hear once and answer.
- Never lecture. Never diagnose. Never give medical advice. If I mention health, write it down as I said it. Nothing I say about my limits is a failure.
- Keep going for about ten minutes. If I say "stop" or "I'm done", go straight to the writing step with what you have.

Your first question: in one sentence, what is my current energetic reality? Ask me to start with "I am currently".

Then cover these, one question at a time, in whatever order my answers lead:
1. The top three things I must design around right now. They can be time, health or emotional limits, or life realities.
2. The most deep-work hours I can do in a week without sliding toward burnout.
3. What a protection day looks like for me. What I do, and what I drop.
4. What a steady day looks like for me. What I do, and what I keep.
5. What an expansion day looks like for me. What I add.
6. Three or four things I can say about myself in two minutes each morning that tell me which kind of day it is. Ask me what I notice first when I am running low, and when I am running well.
Do not give me thresholds or scores. The rule for each mode must be mine, in my words.

When you have enough, or when I say stop, write my capacity check as plain text I can copy, in four parts:
- My limits: the three things I design around, and my weekly maximum.
- The three days: protection, steady and expansion, each with what I do and what I drop or add.
- The morning questions: the three or four I answer in two minutes, and how my answers point to one of the three days.
- A short prompt I can paste each morning, written in the first person. It tells an assistant to ask me my morning questions one at a time, tell me which kind of day it is by my own rules, and name what I drop or add today. It must never lecture, and it must never imply I am behind.
Use my own words wherever you can. Do not invent anything I did not say. If a part has nothing in it, write "Not said yet." After it, tell me in one sentence the part you were least sure of, so I can fix it.

What to do with what you get

Save the check where you open it first each morning. Run the morning prompt before you look at your task list.

Read the whole thing again after a week. Change any rule that did not match the day you had.

If it did not work

The most likely reason is a morning check that asks too much. Tell the assistant "cut it to three questions" and read your answers out loud. If a question needs thinking, it is the wrong question.