Load Management in Everyday Life

Load management has escaped the sports arena. Its advocates walk among us wearing athleisure and speaking in analytic tongues.

The load management idea is simple: an athlete takes a night or an afternoon off occasionally to preserve his body so that he can perform when it matters, like in a nationally televised home game.

Not to be outflanked, the accountant in the strip mall begins sitting out random weekdays in March because of “tax season load management.” He posts thoughtful updates about his recovery window, as if spreadsheets impose a physical toll that can be measured in soreness.

At the local Starbucks, a sign explains that one barista is load managing for the afternoon rush. This puzzles the people standing in line at 8:15 a.m., who had assumed that coffee shops’ mission was to produce coffee in the morning.

Even the dog is managing its load.  The tennis ball is thrown. The dog watches it sail, bounce, and settle into the grass. There is a pause that feels like contemplation but is actually policy.

He is managing his workload ahead of squirrel season. The calculation is visible in his eyes. Fetch now, or save for a hypothetical future in which squirrels require a level of readiness he has not yet achieved.

Load management spreads because it flatters us. It suggests that our minor obligations are playoff games in disguise. It allows us to rest without admitting we are tired. We are not avoiding effort; we are optimizing outcomes. We are not overwhelmed; we are strategic.

There is, buried under the jargon, a small honesty  trying to emerge. People are worn down. They want permission to pause without drafting a press release. Thus, they have chosen to narrate their fatigue in the argot of performance science, as if exhaustion becomes respectable when it sounds complicated and obscure.

We sit out the ordinary, waiting for a moment worthy of our fully managed selves, as the season keeps going. Eventually the game we were saving ourselves for arrives, lightly attended, with people still asking who is going to play.

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