Think of life as a list of countless tasks and actions we can do, ranked from most important to least important.
You can then think of your capacity as the line on this list that divides the actions you do from the actions you don’t.
This rank will keep changing, and so we must understand how the line will fall. It’s not as simple as thinking that the line is static, where one task becomes more important and one task becomes less important. The movement of one task may cause multiple tasks to fall outside our capacity.
Life will feel in balance when we’re aware of the tasks above the line. We’ll feel out of balance when we’re not aware of where the line is. This can happen when we believe we’re on top of things but then realise that something has slipped. Or when a new task is thrust upon us and we don’t know what the implications are. Or when we’re achieving our goals but the success is crowding out other areas of life that we’ve yet to appreciate.
And the great thing about this exercise is that there are certain actions which will push the line down the list (and certain actions which will push the line up).
So where is your line?