Focus & Capacity
Capacity governance, energy mix, maintenance burden, focus lanes, open loops, and weekly snapshots.
What is Capacity Governance?
The Focus page is Foundry's answer to the most common founder failure mode: doing too many things at once. It provides a dashboard for your project portfolio, how many projects are active, what their energy profile looks like, and whether you're overcommitted.
Capacity governance works through three mechanisms:
1. Capacity limits. A self-set maximum number of active projects
2. Energy classification. Every project tagged as Compounding, Draining, Neutral, or Maintenance
3. Burden tracking. Quantified maintenance cost across your portfolio
The Focus page is a Pro feature. Free plan users can view it but cannot change capacity settings.
Capacity Profile
Your capacity profile defines your operating constraints:
Max Active Projects:
1
2
3
5
| Field | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ------- | --------- | ------------- |
| Max Active Projects | 3 | Maximum top-level ACTIVE projects your attention can sustain |
| Focus Lane Project | null | The single project receiving your primary attention right now |
| Notes | null | Context about your current constraints ("Q1 focus: shipping billing") |
Set capacity in Settings → Workspace → Capacity or directly on the Focus page. The capacity limit is a governance tool, exceeding it triggers an OVERLOAD_ALERT recommendation.
Energy Mix
The energy mix shows the breakdown of your active projects by energy type as a visual bar chart:
● Compounding 50%
● Draining 25%
● Maintenance 25%
A healthy portfolio is predominantly compounding. The system generates warnings when:
- All active projects are DRAINING with zero COMPOUNDING → "Your energy mix is unsustainable"
- Any project has unclassified energy type → "Classify energy types to assess portfolio health"
Maintenance Burden
Each project has a maintenance burden score (0-10). The portfolio burden is the aggregate across all active projects:
Portfolio Burden = Sum of all active project burdens / (Number of active projects × 10)
When portfolio burden exceeds 70%, the system generates a high-priority CAPACITY_WARNING. Projects with burden ≥ 7 and strategic score ≤ 3 are flagged as park candidates, high cost, low return.
Focus Lane
The focus lane is a soft designation for your single most important project. It appears:
- At the top of the Focus page with a highlighted border
- On the Today page as "Primary Focus"
- In the capacity header
Setting a focus lane doesn't restrict what you work on, it's a visibility tool that keeps your top priority front and center. You can change the focus lane at any time from the Focus page.
Open Loops
Open loops are unresolved items that create cognitive overhead. The Focus page tracks two types:
| Open Loop | Threshold | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ----------- | ----------- | ------------- |
| Stale RAW ideas | Created 14+ days ago | Ideas captured but never triaged |
| Stalled triage | In IN_TRIAGE for 7+ days | Ideas started but not finished in triage |
Open loops contribute to the "mental load" assessment. The weekly review captures your open loop count as part of the focus snapshot.
Weekly Focus Snapshots
The Focus page shows your recent weekly focus snapshots, historical records created during the weekly review. Each snapshot captures:
- Focus note (what you reflected on)
- Open loop count at that time
- Whether you were overloaded (over capacity)
- Your week rating
Snapshots let you see trends: is your open loop count growing? Are you consistently overloaded? Is your focus note always about the same problem?
FAQ
Nothing is blocked. You can still create projects above the limit. But an OVERLOAD_ALERT recommendation appears prominently on Today, Overview, and Recommendations pages. The alert persists until you park or complete a project.
Should I include side projects in my capacity count?
Yes. The capacity limit counts all ACTIVE top-level projects, regardless of how "serious" they are. If it has your attention, it consumes capacity.
How do I decide which project to park?
Look at three signals: energy type (park draining before compounding), maintenance burden (park high-burden first), and strategic score (park low-strategic-score first). The Capacity Warning recommendations highlight specific park candidates.