If you’ve missed me recently, it’s because I’ve had to make a temporary change for a while due to some repairs happening back home. As a result, I’m writing from a different setup than usual for a while, but the work continues as usual otherwise. I’m still writing, still building, still keeping the wheels turning, even if the background logistics are a bit different than normal.
That said, it’s actually a nice change of pace for the most part, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to experience life through a different lens. It’s a reminder to remain adaptable and flexible, and to know that you’ve got to stay sharp no matter what life throws your way. Actually, thinking about this, and some other things I’ve been getting up to in life, has me pondering a common saying: “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.
It’s powerful advice for sure, but I want to offer a slightly different version that fits the realities of our present times: “Put an egg in every basket.”
And just to be clear, I don’t mean scattering yourself until you cannot finish anything. That’ll never work. Rather, I’m talking about keeping more than one viable route open, so your momentum never depends on a single gatekeeper, platform, or plan being executed perfectly. If anything, I think we’ve all seen that this often doesn’t pan out like we’d expect it to.
Life happens. Things change. We change. Circumstances, quite frankly, can be totally unpredictable. The best survivors on the planet are those who can adapt to every circumstance because they’re not tied to any single niche; put another way, their niche is their adaptability.
Of course, if you know me, you know I almost always find a way to connect this to software philosophy, and I’ve been thinking about that recently as well.
Tech Insight: The power of freedom is keeping your options open
When it comes to digital sovereignty, choice isn’t just a preference. It’s resilience. But choice should be paired with flexibility. When you use tools and systems that let you switch, export, rebuild, migrate, fork, or re-route, you’re quietly (but wisely) protecting yourself from the most common failure state: being stuck.
It’s one of the underrated advantages of open ecosystems and the “builder/creator” mindset. When you pair these two together, you tend to produce optionality by default, not because you always have everything you need and everyone agrees on all points, but because no single actor or factor controls the future.
That optionality is evident when we can work across different tools and workflows and still achieve the same outcomes. It shows up in how quickly we can adapt to challenges and bottlenecks, whether that’s pricing, licensing, platform hostility, product abandonment, or even a company simply changing course.
The lesson here isn’t “always keep switching”, it’s that you should be able to switch if you need to, and you should be mentally and functionally prepared to do so when you need to. That’s what I mean by an egg in every basket.
It’s the difference between: “This is my one tool, my one platform, my one pipeline,” and “This is my main path, but I have other doors I can use.”
The same applies in business
Same eggs, different baskets. Think of it like this: If your entire income depends on a single client, platform, publication, social network, or product/service offering, you don’t just have “a career”, you’ve created a single point of failure.
That’s beyond risky, and chances are higher that life will pull on this dangling thread at some point. So, the goal isn’t to become a machine that does everything, but to design our lives in such a way that one lane backing up might slow us down, but never stop us from moving.
The key is to transform versatility from a mere personality trait into a strategy. Versatility becomes chaos when you keep changing direction without defining destiny. Versatility becomes power when you maintain the direction but vary the routes to success.
Practical Tip: Build a “basket map” for your work
This one’s a simple exercise you can use to stay focused while still building resilience. First, pick the lane you want to win in the long term. Next, pick two support lanes.
Note: These aren’t distractions; they’re stabilisers.
For Instance, let’s say your main lane is client services, and your support lanes are writing and a small digital product. All you need is one small action for each lane this week. The key is to keep it modest, repeatable, and proportional to your goals.
The point isn’t to achieve instant transformation (although you might). Rather, it’s about building (and maintaining) momentum that doesn’t collapse when one door closes. In other words, an egg in every basket.
Here’s what I’ve published recently:
It’s FOSS
- Making the Case for a Modern Synaptic-Style Package Manager on Linux
The Linux desktop has evolved, and the “advanced package manager” experience should evolve with it.
Working with us
At RolandiXor Media Inc., we blend design and open-source thinking for our clients.
Elsewhere
- Mastodon: mastodon.social/@rolandixor
- Threads: @rolandixor
- X: @rolandixor
Support this work
If this writing has been useful and you’d like to help sustain it:
→ https://ko-fi.com/rolandixor
Catch you in the next Roll Out!
Comments