Mental Models for Choosing Your Next Job

Instead of starting with the end in mind, we can imagine our desired day-to-day lives now and in five or ten years.

• Do you travel a lot for work?
• Do you have a flexible schedule?
• Are you known in professional circles or neighbourhood communities?
• Are you at peak health?

Impose constraints on the work that you do based on the life you want to live.

Suppose you know what role work should play in your life, then consider what specific work and in which areas you should do it.

Find the intersection of what you're good at, what you love, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for.

If you don't know what you love, perhaps you can only find out if you try it on to see if it fits.

The future is fundamentally different than it appears. We can't know what we'll like and what not before trying it first.

We can find out what we like in two ways:

• Talk to people. Reach out to people in whatever sector and role you're curious about and ask what it's like.
• Do stuff. Try on the work that you're curious about for a short while.