Whenever you're at a crossroads and are wondering what to do next, here's how to think.

(a short thread on horizon based thinking)

1/ The first thing to ensure is that you acknowledge that a lot of your decision-making will be driven by how you're feeling *right now* and not how you'll feel once you choose a path.

The need to escape can make us choose things that we won't like long term.

2/ The way to keep emotion-driven decision at bay is to *force* yourself to think in three horizons:

1. Short term goals
2. Long term goals
3. The path between the two

3/ Yes, I know this sounds trivial but far too often:

- We're either hyper-focused on short term and optimize our way to getting stuck into a local-optima

- Or, we're hyper-focused on the long term and forget that present actions is how we get to the future

4/ To make a realistic yet ambitious plan, you need to think in three horizons.

This concept is crystallized on slide #11 in this deck by @yak_collective

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OfBuSq4SImE1Gq2EaAGCAlkwC8LZRCWx-7O_VOHJ5TI/edit#slide=id.p8

5/ So essentially the first horizon you need to plan for is the short term, which means asking and answering questions like:

- What is not working for you lately? Why?
- What is working for you (or things you really enjoy or do well) that you wouldn't want to lose?

6/ The second horizon you need to plan for is the long term, which means asking and answering questions like:

- Given infinite time, resources, money, etc. what is that you want to be?
- What is the evidence in the present that you really want to be that in the future?

7/ The third horizon is the connection between the two (and usually the most difficult).

Here you need to answers questions like:

- Where you can start investing today to get to the long term?
- What is that you want to retain as you make progress towards the long term?

8/ The point of this horizon-planning exercise is to force you to ask enough questions so that you're neither deciding because of "my-present sucks" emotions or plan for unrealistic "pie-in-the-sky" visions that won't happen.

9/ That's it!

Hope you like it :)

This planning is useful both in business and life. If you try it, let me know how it goes for you.