Every year, so called Bl*ck F#&day and Cyb&r W**k freak me out a little more.

On the one hand I just want to say "Happy Buy Nothing Day" and crawl under a rock to hide from predatory capitalism (which is essentially what I did this year).

But as someone who does buy cool instruments/gear, uses books/software/courses for my projects, and occasionally has to dress himself in clothing etc, it feels like a missed opportunity to not buy things at lower prices.

How I Decide What (Not) To Buy

Instead of judging myself/freaking out when I want to buy something, I go through this simple decision-making process, (and yes, I nerded out for hours turning it into a chart).

So much of sustainable Career Design is about knowing when to say ‘yes’ and when to say ‘no’.

Let me know if it works for you!

(Also curious if it’s missing anything, let me know in the comments).

Text Version of the Decision Map

For those of you who prefer a text-based decision making process, here’s a transcription of the chart:

Ask "can I use something I already have to solve the same problem?"
Even if you don't own it, can you borrow it or ask for help from a friend?
Get creative!
➤ If 'yes', don't buy the thing ➤ If 'no', go on to question 2.
Ask "Do I really need the thing right now, or can it wait several months?"
Marketing today often creates false urgency.
If you won't actually need this thing right away, put off the purchase. There will be another sale soon, and you'll have more data then about whether you actually need the thing.
➤ If 'yes', don't buy the thing. ➤ If 'no', go on to question 3.
Ask "will buying this thing directly address my weakest link?"
A chain is only as strong as the weakest link. If you focus your spending (and other) decisions on strengthening it, you’ll start moving in a healthier direction.
➤ If 'no', don't buy the thing. ➤ If 'yes', go to question 4.

Not sure what your weakest link is? We work on identifying them every week during our Creative Mapping Circle member group calls. Often thinking through the 8 Forms of Capital helps me identify my weakest link.
Ask "will buying this thing create a new weak link?"
Some examples of a new weak link could include:
A Financial Capital weak link if I spend money I need for something else, or Material Capital, if I now have to store/organize/manage more stuff,
➤ If 'yes', don't buy the thing. ➤ If 'no', go to question 5.
What does my gut say?
After all that thinking, take a breath, consider closing your eyes or looking away from the screen for a bit. Ask, “does the rest of my body say that buying this is the right thing for me right now?”
➤ If it feels right in your gut, buy the thing. ➤ If not, don’t buy it for now.

Good work being intentional about your decisions! This process gets easier with practice.

There’s a tightness in the place where my stomach, sternum, and diaphragm all meet.

I put lots of time and thought (and money and friends’ time) into conceiving of and setting up the 2022 Sustainable Career Incubator.

But I don’t know who’s going to show up for it.

It’s the latest version of my 8-week career design course, with the added improvement of 6 months access to the community app + call recording library I’ve spent the past year building.

It’s one of the best gifts I have to give and I think it can help lots of people– talented, struggling musicians, artists, small business owners, project-makers.

Now that we’re two weeks out as I’m trying to communicate what I’m offering, I’m wondering if I bit off more than I can chew.

This has happened before, so I decided to make a list of how to respond in this situation:

1. Order a sandwich

This isn’t a joke. If I’m feeling overwhelmed by my commitments, it often means I’m paying less attention to my physical needs. A sandwich:

gives my body (my most important partner) urgent fuel and pleasure
frees up the time it would take to make food for myself
allows me an opportunity to literally practice not biting off more food than I can chew, a meditative somatic act that helps train my future project pacing

2. Delete something

Besides sandwich eating, designing by subtraction is the quickest way of creating capacity.

It works especially well when I delete something I hadn’t imagined living without.

In this case I decided that after this spring, I won’t teach any more live 8-week courses on this material until 2023. This will free up my whole year to:

focus on giving a great experience to the current incubator cohort
write more (songs, articles, curriculum)
plan next years’ offerings 6-8 months ahead of time (instead of 4 or 5 weeks)

3. Try to be radically honest with myself and others

I care about doing things right. I care about truly helping people. And I want people to like me.

All of these can be the barometer that controls what I do. But I’d rather let radical honesty be the barometer.

Sometimes this means letting others down, looking less capable than I’d like, admitting to myself that my capacity will only allow for one third of what I’d envisioned.

“Why am I spending time on creating this course in the first place?”
“What am I afraid of?”
“Am I actually acting in a way that makes my life feel more sustainable?”

Honesty helps me see the reality of a situation. It gives me (and my collaborators) good data. If I’m truly going to move toward sustainable systems, I need to make design choices based on what is actually real.

4. Ask for help

This is part of the radical honesty practice.

Last year I decided to start hiring co-workers for several hours per week. Beyond the extra help, weirdly, the accountability of others on the project has made me more productive.

This past week, my amazing sister-in-law and several friends proofread the course description page, and gave great suggestions.

We are more than the sum of our parts. Leaning on my community ecosystem for support is not only crucial for my projects, but it sets a precedent

5. Try to gain perspective

From an 800 mile road trip I took with my 90-something year old grandparents in 2018.

I called my grandma for her 97th birthday last night. We talked for an hour. I was tempted to multitask and work on my calendar while chatting, but I thankfully stopped myself.

Nothing I’m doing is more important than savoring every word spoken by my elder relative

(she interrupted me to tell me the full moon had just risen and she needed to show Grandpa).

Nothing more important than taking deep breaths.

If I ever have a 97th birthday, what will be important to me on that day? Probably not going to be counting how many promotional instagram reels I created way back in 2022.

My Values Constellation Map constantly grounds me with the reminder of why I do what I do. It is the ‘To Be’ list that ultimately informs any of my ‘To Do’ lists.

6. Concentrate on being over doing for a while

I almost called this ‘deliberately waste some time’.

Obviously ‘being’ is not a waste though. And I have to remind my overachiever, visionary, action-hero mind of this sometimes.

Deep breathing, mindfulness, meditation are all great of course. The two things that have been a game changer for me this week are:

dancing around my room to at least one song daily
playing wingspan on steam

Wingspan is a beautiful board game about bird ecosystems. I just found the computer version of it, which takes just enough attention that I can’t focus on anything I’m anxious about, and instead I’m immersed in a genuinely beautiful, present experience.

I know computer games aren’t typically recommended as mindfulness tools, but this refreshes and resets me like almost nothing else. My ‘doing’ time ends up being more productive.

7. Revisit my “weakest link”

The chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

A core idea of Creative Career Design, which comes up in most of my courses, is a paradigm I learned from my land/life design mentor Javan Bernakevitch: the practice of making all decisions based on my weakest link.

At any given time I may have 40 things in my life that need improvement. But identifying the one weakest link is key.

Anything I spend my time doing has to address my weakest link. If a project or commitment makes it weaker, it’s an automatic ‘no.’

Over the years, I’ve made hundreds of micro decisions based on my weakest link. It’s helped me get out of health crises, make thousands of dollars I wouldn’t have otherwise made, and find clarity when I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.

The 2022 Sustainable Career Incubator starts in the beginning of March.

It’s the most thorough way I currently offer of diving into the Creative Career Design process that I’ve been researching and teaching for the past 8 years (including Values Constellation Maps and Weak Link identification mentioned above).

It’s for musicians, artists, and project-makers who have something amazing to give the world, but are feeling frustrated in their efforts.

Read all about it here:

Learn about the 2022 Incubator