I found myself stuck.
Unable to decide where to move.
Too many choices.
Too many criteria.
All of them technically “reasonable.”
None of them helpful to narrow down the choice.
Locations. Prices. Convenience for work.
And the not-small thing: the community I’ve built over the past year.
The more I tried to think it through, the more impossible it felt.
Luckily, I was reading a really good book on decision-making at the time: Decisions That Matter: how to make good decisions in the world of endless choice.
It gave me something I desperately needed, not "the perfect answer", but a way to make a decision I could stand behind now.
Not “the best possible choice in some imaginary future.”
But the best available choice, aligned with my life as it actually is.
Here are a few things that helped.
Stakes.
Is this decision worth deliberate thinking?
Yes. Where you live shapes your minutes, your mood, your thinking, your energy. Every single day.
Simplify the options.
What are my real options, not in an ideal world, but right now?
I was only looking for a place for 2 weeks before moving somewhere long-term. So I stripped it down to non-negotiables:
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Solid internet for work
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Quiet for calls, writing, podcasting, thinking
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Close to gym and food so I don’t lose time
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A place where I feel safe walking
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A kitchen
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Peace of mind
Without these, even short-term, everything else in my life would suffer.
Then came the second layer.
Community.
Proximity to the city for meetings.
A space that supports biz development.
Inspiration.
My own place vs sharing.
Freedom to work at 4am without boundaries.
Most of these conflict. You can’t optimize for all of them at once. At least not from where I am.
Given the deadline, I chose convenience and essentials, close to where I already was.
But for the longer-term decision, the book suggested something powerful for “impossible choices.”
4 lenses:
VALUES
What matters most right now?
For me: freedom and growth. Making the business work. Removing friction everywhere else.
JOY
What gives me energy when things are hard?
Walks. Sunrises. Sunsets. Space to think.
That’s not indulgence. That’s fuel for my future.
SUCCESS
What does success look like this year, honestly?
Business growth. One clear focus.
My environment has to support that.
IMPACT
Who do I want to affect, and how?
More people impacted means meeting more people.
Which means being closer to the city.
Once I looked through these lenses, the decision became obvious.
I could compromise on size.
On how modern the place is.
But not on what the seed of the next version of me needs to grow🌱
And it brought to mind another point.
Our values change.
Our definition of success changes.
What brings us joy changes.
The impact we want to create changes.
So will “the right choice.”
The job isn’t to find the perfect answer forever.
It’s to prepare the conditions for who you’re becoming next.
Over to you, dear reader,
What does the next-level you need, based on your current essentials, values, joy, success, and impact?
And are you putting those things in place, the way a gardener prepares the soil before planting the seed?
