personal practice: doors open, doors closed

sometimes making decisions is a tough thing. even when i’m not decision fatigued, picking between options can be hard. it can be especially difficult when they’re all good options!

the other day i was chatting with one of the guys i support and he was struggling with something many of us struggle with: making decisions about our future. he has a couple of options, all of which are generally awesome, but very different.

i have a bunch of different decision-making tools, but this one that i call ‘doors open, doors closed,’ i haven’t written about yet. i shared it with him and that triggered me to write it up.

it’s nothing fancy, but, like all toolkits, the more tools the better (i think). it also helps to have the right tool for the right job and this one felt right for his current sitch.

the way it works is simple and it’s essentially a small twist on a pro-con list.

• lay out all your options. then for each option…

• make one list that is all the “doors” or future opportunities still available if you made that choice

• make another list of the doors that will no longer be open to you

• compare

• decide based on which option gives you the most open doors

note: doors, whether open or closed, must be things you actually want and care about. if you frame things you don’t want as doors, this tool won’t work.

this tool is especially helpful when making decisions about job opportunities and also about moving. for example, if you’re currently living in africa and moving back to united states is going to close a bunch of currently open doors for you in africa, that’s a good thing to weigh.

anyway, i’ve got lots more thoughts about this tool in practice, but i’ll wrap this post here for now.