An open door looks almost free. You have not committed to walking through it. You are only keeping the option.
But an option can still ask for attention: another conversation, another proposal, another half-developed project that needs to be remembered. The cost does not always appear in a budget. It appears in the number of things your mind is trying to keep alive.
This is a question I want to explore through independent work: when does breadth create resilience, and when does it make every promising direction harder to pursue?
Opportunity cost offers one lens. The cost of a project includes the next-best use of the time it will consume. For a generalist, that comparison can be uncomfortable because several projects may be interesting for entirely different reasons.
A project might create income, deepen expertise, lead to useful relationships, or simply be worth doing for its own sake. Those are different returns. Being explicit about them makes a choice easier to evaluate.
A useful experiment
For each active possibility, write down its next concrete step, the time required, and the reason for keeping it open. Then choose which possibilities are active, which are parked, and which can close.
Question still open
What is the smallest portfolio of commitments that preserves curiosity and still allows enough depth to produce good work?
Author note
This is a conceptual draft proposed for the July retrospective. Add an actual example before treating it as an account of that month.