BUILDING CAPACITY — PART 6 WHAT IF YOU DON'T FILL IT?

Yesterday, we asked a question:

What are you making room for?

But there's another question sitting right behind it.

What if you don't immediately fill that room?

That's something we've been thinking about at Red Alpha.

Because when you're used to running a small business where there is always something that needs to be done, empty space can feel strange.

An opening in the production schedule?

Fill it.

A few hours become available?

Find something that needs doing.

A responsibility comes off your plate?

There's probably another one waiting to take its place.

For a long time, that can become the rhythm of running a business.

Make room. Fill room. Repeat.

But lately, we're starting to look at capacity differently.

AVAILABLE DOESN'T HAVE TO MEAN EMPTY

We've spent a lot of this series talking about different ways we're trying to create capacity.

Changing how work gets done.

Looking at what really needs to happen in-house.

Protecting certain parts of the schedule.

Sometimes saying no.

Trying to build a business that doesn't require the owner to personally touch every single thing.

But if those changes actually work, eventually something interesting happens.

There might be some room left.

And we're discovering that we don't necessarily want to rush to fill every bit of it with more of the same work.

For us, some of that capacity is becoming something else.

WE'RE CHOOSING CREATIVITY

If you've been following Red Alpha lately, you've probably seen it.

We're writing.

We're producing weekly shows.

We're having conversations with people in our community.

We're building the Red Alpha Funny Pages.

We're revisiting characters and stories we've created over the years.

We're experimenting.

We're telling stories.

We're creating things simply because we believe they're worth creating.

Some of those ideas may eventually become businesses.

Some may become products.

Some may create opportunities we can't see yet.

And some might simply be something we enjoyed making.

We're okay with that.

Because maybe capacity doesn't always need an immediate return attached to it.

Sometimes the return is having enough room to explore something you couldn't explore before.

THAT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE YOUR ANSWER

This is where we have to be careful.

We're not suggesting that every business owner should start a show.

Or write a blog.

Or create comics.

Or spend their newly available time doing what we're doing.

That's our answer right now.

Someone else's capacity might create room to spend more time with family.

It might create room to pursue a different customer.

Learn something.

Improve a process.

Develop a product.

Think.

Rest.

Or simply have enough margin that everything doesn't feel like an emergency.

The important part may not be what fills the space.

It may be realizing that you finally have a choice.

MAYBE THAT'S WHAT CAPACITY REALLY BUYS

Not more work.

Not less work.

Choice.

The ability to look at an open space and decide what belongs there instead of automatically allowing the next demand to claim it.

For us, right now, we're choosing to put some creativity there.

And we're curious where that leads.

Because perhaps one of the most interesting things about creating room isn't knowing exactly what you're going to do with it.

It's finally having enough room to find out.

MORNING RED QUESTION

If you created a little more room in your business or your life, would you immediately fill it—or would you give yourself some time to discover what could grow there?

Morning Red is where Red Alpha Studios thinks out loud about business, creativity, community and whatever we're learning along the way.