Getting started · 2 of 5

Rough out your weeks: capacity planning without the detail trap

By Brittany Downey, founder of Margin · August 2026

The detail trap

When I first started trying to plan my weeks more consistently, I'd get hung up on the details:

How long is this really going to take me?
Is this client going to get their feedback to me on time?
How much research will I have to do before I can even start?

I was waiting until things were 100% solid before I planned them out. But the problem was that they never got to 100%, so I never got to planning.

Rough hours are plenty

Margin is built for rough guesses. Once your categories are set up, this takes about two minutes.

Open the Plan tab. Pick one category and rough in the hours you expect over the next few weeks. A monthly retainer might be a steady 5 hours a week. A big project might be heavy up front and lighter later. Your best guess is plenty.

A category row in Margin with rough hours planned across the next four weeks, and colored weekly totals above — One row roughed in. The colored chips up top are your weekly totals.

Watch the week totals

As you fill things in, keep an eye on each week's total. Margin colors it as the week fills up, so you can spot an overloaded week before you're living it. Got a hard deadline that week? Star it so it stands out.

Margin's cell editor with hours, a note, and the Highlight this week toggle for starring a deadline — Click any cell to add hours, a note, and a star for deadline weeks.

Two things that make this faster

Repeating work, like a retainer? Type the hours once, then copy and paste them across the weeks where they repeat.
Plans shifted? Select the hours and slide them to a different week. No retyping.

Selecting multiple cells in Margin with the copy, paste, and move controls visible — Select a few cells and the copy/paste/move controls appear.

Let Claude plan the weeks for you

Not sure where to start? Margin connects to Claude, and you can ask it to interview you about a project and write the week-by-week plan straight into your grid.

Not a Claude user? Paste this prompt into any AI assistant, answer its questions, and drop the plan it hands back into Margin:

I'm using a capacity planner to map out a project, and I want you to build the week-by-week plan for me so I can copy it straight in. The planner holds two things for each week: a number of hours, and a short note about what I'm doing that week. First, ask me the questions you need, a few at a time, to understand the project: what it is, when it's due, my rough estimate of total hours, the main phases or tasks involved, how many hours a week I can realistically give it, and any weeks I'll be away. Then give me the finished plan as a table with one row per week, from now until the deadline. Each row should have: the week's date, the number of hours to schedule that week, and a short note for what to focus on. Flag any week that looks too tight.

Margin is a capacity planner for people who run a business and a life from the same desk.

Start planning →