🫣Fear-setting

An exercise on paper for a decision I keep not making. From Tim Ferriss's talk, 🎬 Why you should define your fears instead of your goals. I kept the exercise and left the remainder of the talk where it was.

Three columns, one row per fear

1. Define. The worst that could happen, in a specific sentence.
2. Prevent. What I could do to make it less likely.
3. Repair. If it happened anyway, what I would do, or whom I would ask.

Then two short questions

4. What might even a partial success be worth?
5. What does doing nothing cost, in six months, in a year, in three?

Use when: the dread is larger than the list. It usually is.

Not for: small decisions, or anything a sum can settle. The next day's arithmetic did more for the sabbatical than this did.

Used once. Saturday 20 December, at the window seat, for the sabbatical. Five lines. Four had a repair I could write in one sentence. The fifth was not mine to repair alone, so I showed it to Jonas Reuter at lunch. Eight days later we decided: 📜 Take the sabbatical from September 2026.

It is ⚓ Rehearse the loss with a ruler and three headings.