From Built to Breathe by Paige McPheely
Where are you in the breath cycle?
We take work in, we hold it, and at some point it should leave our hands. Five quick questions tell you where you are, and what to do next.
Question 1 of 5
When something new lands on your plate…
Question 2 of 5
Things will finally slow down…
Question 3 of 5
If you took a week off…
Question 4 of 5
Most evenings…
Question 5 of 5
Which sounds most like you?
You're in the inhale
We take in more than we realize, and very little of it leaves.
You’re a responsibility magnet. The better you are at getting things done, the more things there are for you to do. Each addition seemed small on its own, so it settled in before you noticed how much had changed.
You’re also fairly sure relief is coming, after the next hire, the launch, or the new fiscal year. That’s the arrival fallacy: the goalpost keeps moving, and every small step toward it keeps the grind alive.
What to do next
Decide what to take on, and when. Before you say yes to the next thing, ask whether it needs your judgment or only your involvement.
One test from the book: would you still be doing it if your team doubled in size tomorrow? If not, it probably shouldn’t be yours now.
You're holding your breath
Most of it has simply been ours long enough that it feels like the work.
You already know the pace isn’t sustainable, and that some of what fills your week doesn’t truly need you. Work you covered temporarily stuck. People adjusted their expectations around your yeses, and being needed became part of who you are.
This is endurance without an exit. When success requires holding your breath indefinitely, the work is no longer serving you. You are serving it.
What to do next
Don’t turn off your relentlessness. Aim it at far fewer things.
Write down the decisions your team waits on you for that they could make themselves. For each one, define when it can be made without you, then share the list. That’s your first structural system.
You're ready to exhale
What is no longer ours to carry, we put down.
You’ve gotten very good at the work and still can’t get ahead of it. You’ve tried the systems, the tools, and the discipline, and you suspect the problem isn’t efficiency.
Every new tool, AI included, has made things faster without taking anything off your plate. Your time has shifted from doing the thing to managing the thing that does it. You’re solving for the wrong thing.
What to do next
Stop looking for faster. Look for fewer. The change comes from removing work from your plate entirely, not from doing it more efficiently.
List ten things you do each week that require your involvement but not your judgment. That list is the job description for your first hire.