Inklings: a tumblelog

The principle behind the technique is simple: As Sun Tzu advises you to do with your enemies, you must do with yourself–leave yourself a line of retreat, so that you will have less trouble retreating. The prospect of losing your job, say, may seem a lot more scary when you can’t even bear to think about it, than after you have calculated exactly how long your savings will last, and checked the job market in your area, and otherwise planned out exactly what to do next. Only then will you be ready to fairly assess the probability of keeping your job in the planned layoffs next month. Be a true coward, and plan out your retreat in detail–visualize every step–preferably before you first come to the battlefield.