gm frens!

Welcome to Ally’s Newsletter, a weekly publication where I curate the top ideas and experiments to design a creative, focused life.

This week, I invested in myself by buying Justin Welsh’s Creator MBA course. It’s one of the biggest purchases I’ve ever made for myself, and while it was definitely a bit nerve wracking, I’m more excited for the growth and learning that will come from consistent action that I plan to do this year.

Writing and building this newsletter for the past 7+ months has been an incredible experience, and I’ve learned to listen to my own voice more through reflective writing. Developing my own opinions, voice, and perspective has been incredible in personal growth.

If you’re going through your own growth journey, I’m cheering for you and rooting for you ✨ 

Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re behind - you’re exactly where you need to be.

How to decide where to live: from someone who's moved 13 times

Yes, I've moved a lot, but so have you (probably). It's getting more and more common to pick up and start over in a new location.

As someone who has moved to places that I don't vibe with and who cares very much about being intentional with how I design my life, I've learned that this is one of those decisions where it's best to have a system.

As the head of product of a startup, I use a lot of frameworks to guide high-stakes decision making so I started applying them to figure out where I wanted to live.

These next steps might feel a bit technical to decide something so human and messy as deciding where to live, but the best of decision science shows us that having a system for making big decisions trumps having sound judgement by SIX TIMES.

I needed a structured and repeatable way to make good decisions, and this is the process that I created and used to do just that.

Note: even if you’re not moving, this is a solid process that can be applied to many big life decisions.

Clarify my top priorities

Years of leading product discussions with all types of people has reinforced in me the understanding that We Think We Know What We Want, but usually we don't.

Totally OK. It's how humans work. It's usually a "I'll know it when I see it" kinda thing. So I "see it" by writing it down. Writing down and force ranking my reasons for wanting to move to a particular city always gives me clarity.

Example:

• "I want to live in a place that

  • 1) has a big digital creator & tech scene,

  • 2) is walkable,

  • 3) is enjoyable and has a lot of cultural things to do."

Identify my hypotheses & my unknown variables.

This sounds a little jargon-y but they're good words to get familiar with if you want to run to test things in your life.

When faced with a complex problem, just writing out what you know, what you don’t know, and what you need to know is a huge step forward.

It makes clear what you need to learn in order to make a decision.

Examples:

• "I know NYC has a huge network, but idk if I can deal with not having a dishwasher or laundry machine in my unit. Oh also will I go broke in 6 months?"

These are things I need to test. There's no amount of thinking that will get me the answer to these kinds of questions.

Prototype

How can I test my hypotheses without apeing in?

This is the fun part!

I can fly there for a weekend and stay with a friend, I can rent an Airbnb, or I can find a long-term rental to try it out for a couple months.

So many options, but it requires a high agency mindset to see and create options where there don’t seem to be any.

Make the call

Based on the information I've created and gathered for meself, I make a call. I've just significantly reduced the risk of moving to the totally wrong city and I feel so much more confident that I made the right decision.

Yes, it's a lot of effort, but this is one of those big life decisions that eliminates or creates a thousand other downstream decisions.

It's worth it.