In my previous posts, we established the Productivity Picket Fence framework to ensure a sustainable work rhythm. The ten four-hour periods (70% Production, 20% Organizational Learning, and 10% Personal Growth) provide the structure for a productive week.

But as a manager, structure alone doesn’t solve the most common challenge: the endless stream of new requests and the inevitable question, “What is your team’s capacity for starting X?”

If you don’t have a concrete answer, you risk sacrificing your team’s Production Time to constant context switching. The solution is to define a strict capacity limit that protects the integrity of your work periods.

The Two-Priority Rule

Based on years of observation, I’ve found that the ideal limit for production work for any individual employee is two active priorities: P1 and P2.

This limit is deliberate and based on balance:

• Fewer than two active priorities means that when an employee hits a roadblock on their single task (perhaps waiting for a code review, a data dependency, or stakeholder feedback) they have no meaningful work to pivot to, resulting in wasted time and idle hands.
• More than two active priorities means the employee is juggling too many balls. Having five projects partially finished is not productive; it’s simply a collection of future debt. The goal of the Production Picket Fence is completion and delivery. By limiting focus to P1 (the absolute most important) and P2 (the important backup), you ensure sufficient forward momentum on the most critical work.

The Daily Work Hierarchy

For the team to feel accomplished, their daily effort must be directed in a clear, descending order of priority. This links back to the Picket Fence’s components:

1. P1: The single most critical production task. Work on this first.
2. P2: The secondary production task. This is the pivot when P1 is blocked.
3. System Improvement: Once P1 and P2 are making methodical progress, attention can shift to making the system better, whether through automation, documentation, or technical debt reduction. This directly feeds into our Organizational Learning periods.
4. Self Improvement: The final focus is personal and professional growth, which protects the crucial Personal Growth period in the weekly structure.

From “No” to “Next”: The Prioritization Queue (and When “Next” Starts)

When a peer, leader, or customer asks, “Can you do X?” the natural management instinct is often to squeeze it in, which is where the loss of focus begins. However, constantly saying “No” can damage relationships and create a feeling of being held hostage by the existing workload.

My solution is to never break into the Now (P1 and P2), except in truly extreme, limited cases. Instead, I manage expectations by using a transparent prioritization queue: Now, Next, Later.

• Now (P1, P2): Work currently being executed. Protected from interruption.
• Next: The highest priority work that will start immediately after P1 or P2 is completed.
• Later: Work that is important but not urgent, placed in a prioritized backlog.

When a new request comes in, the answer is always, “Yes, we can definitely start that after we complete P1 or P2. Where should it fit in the Next category?”

It is crucial to be upfront about the timeline here: “Next” work typically begins within a timeframe of two weeks to two months, depending on the complexity of the current P1 and P2 tasks. This shared prioritization process forces a conversation about trade-offs: What comes out of the Next queue to make room for this new request?

By holding the line at two active priorities and managing new requests through a transparent queue, we protect our teams from damaging context switching while delivering honest visibility to our partners. Ultimately, this disciplined approach to capacity is how we turn the strategic vision of the Productivity Picket Fence into predictable, daily progress and sustainable growth.