# stretched thin (capacity)

*Ordinarily means:* Feeling pulled in too many directions at once.

When energy capacity is divided so finely among tasks that each portion can barely sustain its part, and the whole is near collapse from lack of slack.

- Computed level: L19 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: capacity and burnout  ·  Arena: emergence

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [energy](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-energy.capacity), [slack](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-slack.margin), [capacity](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-capacity.size), [maintenance](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-maintenance.upkeep), [window](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-window.range)

**Through:** When a thing is divided so finely that its parts can no longer maintain coherence.

**Novel properties:**
- maintenance
- coherence
- capacity

## Examples
- California's 2020 wildfire response stretched thin as 15,000 firefighters managed 9,900 blazes across 4 million acres in three months. *(institutions)*
- The International Space Station's power grid ran at 98% capacity for 72 hours during a solar array failure in 2019. *(engineering)*
- Kenya's 2023 tea harvest collapsed when one worker had to cover 200 kg of leaf daily across 15 farms due to labor shortages. *(economics)*

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-stretched-thin.capacity*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-stretched-thin.capacity.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*