options

The advice is that you want more options, keep your options open and collect more of them, and that’s the way to succeed in a highly uncertain situation. One aspect of really having an option is to understand that option. Writing a thing isn’t the same as knowing the costs and gains of doing it.

In my personal framework for possessing lots of options there are three levels and a few more steps.

• On Level 1 the option exists and is within your adjacent possible whether you know it or not. This is just a long way of saying that you always have options whether you know it or not. That’s comforting, in a way.
• At Level 2 you are aware that the option is there; it’s on a list somewhere because you’ve identified and named it. It can be the first one, lists gotta start somehow.
• To obtain Level 3 you’ve explored the option and have enough understanding of what it takes to use it. Maybe you’ve rejected it in favor of a better one, but it’s still kicking around. This is what makes the option yours.

Repeat that conveyor belt and store the output. Now you’ve got some things that you could do. Think about them and consider how to use them in your current context. Rank them relative to each other. You’re probably in “I know my options” territory now.

Doesn’t hurt to step back and revisit the situation, make sure you haven’t missed anything or not thought about it from all the angles. It might not be actually all your options, but with effort it can be a good approximation.

I think it’s really important to keep the lower ranked options around, but relegated and out of the way. Consult that list of ideas from time to time. Some old discarded idea might be a great idea when new certainty has presented itself amidst all that uncertainty. Having this store of unforgotten ideas is a resource, a stockpile, even generative when you need it to be. You’ve engaged with these options already and thought, practically, how they work in a particular context. That’s a lot of thinking, don’t throw it away!

One additional note. Some people can effectively do this entirely in their head. I am not one of them and it doesn’t matter. What matters is making an options factory. If you need a tool, a notebook, a PKM software, whatever, who cares. This is only an implementation detail. Make it work for you, however you do it.

jg