self-assessment · personal strategy · solo
The Advantage Compass.folder
Personality tests tell you who you are. The Compass answers the harder question: given who you are, where should your hours go — and which praised, exhausting work is quietly buying your future at a discount.
// kit v2: a stage-ready HTML deck (presenter drawer, run-of-show timer, built-in QR codes) · poker-spec print-and-cut cards with backs and blanks · an A3 activity poster · manuals in A4 and US Letter with bookmarks · three license tiers (CC BY free / single event / organization).
A personal strategy tool built on two axes every career already runs on: strength against weakness, vision against pain. Six placement items locate where your work sits; a two-week time audit counts the hours per quadrant. The output is one page: your golden track to double down on, the learning zone with its spending limit, and the two traps — firefighting and burnout — with their exit moves.
The folder ships a complete ready-to-teach kit: a 16-slide presenter-grade deck with a run-of-show timer and a live audit device, facilitator notes with the 25-minute run of show, a participant workbook and a lean answer sheet, poker-spec quadrant cards and an A3 model poster for the wall — plus a three-tier license, a start-here page. No account, no device: a pen, two honest weeks, and 25 minutes — as a solo self-check, a one-to-one coaching conversation, or a workshop session.
the run sheet
// this is the guide file, word for word — read it here, run from it here. the .md at the bottom of the page is the same text, offline.
Folder:
advantage-compass· Category: self-assessment · solo · 25 min · paper or online · assessment-typeLicense: CC BY 4.0
A personal strategy tool, not a personality test. The Advantage Compass crosses two axes every career decision already depends on — where you are strong, and what the future needs — and maps your work into four quadrants. One of them is your golden track: the work you should double down on. Two of them are traps with familiar names: firefighting, and burnout.
Why another self-assessment
Most self-assessment stops at inventory: here are your strengths, here are your weaknesses, good luck. An inventory cannot answer the question that actually matters — given my strengths, where should I spend the next year?
The Compass borrows from corporate strategy, where this question was solved decades ago. SWOT analysis tells a company not just what it has, but where to commit resources. The Compass imports that move and rebuilds it for a person, with one deliberate upgrade: it adds time as an axis. Companies fight over market share; people fight over their calendar. The interesting conflicts — vision against today's fires, strength against the drag of weakness — only become visible when time is in the model.
The result is one page: four quadrants, each naming what your work there is worth and what it costs.
Three ways to run this folder
- Solo, with an agent (25 min). Hand the folder to your AI agent via
SKILL.md, or paste the items fromadvantage-compass-assessment.jsoninto a FormLM form — same 6 items, automatic scoring, every re-run comparable. - Teaching the model (25 min + Q&A). The facilitator notes (
advantage-compass-facilitator-notes.pdf) carry the full run of show: the trap opening, the axes as questions, the live demo with your own audit, and the answers to the questions you will get — andadvantage-compass-slide-deck.htmlputs the 16 slides on any screen: a presenter drawer with notes and a run-of-show clock, a live audit device the room can watch fill. The PDF edition is for the lectern or printing. - Workshop, offline (25 min per run). Print one A4 answer sheet (
advantage-compass-paper-form.pdf) per participant plus the poker quadrant deck (advantage-compass-prop-cards.pdf). Pens, not devices; calendars, not memories.
New to the folder? advantage-compass-start-here.md maps every file to its use.
The two axes
Horizontal — Strength × Weakness. What you do with low effort and high output, versus what drains you for average results. Self-ratings work here because you are the only witness to your effort: the question is not am I good at this but what does this cost me.
Vertical — Vision × Pain. Vision is the work you want to be doing in three years — the pull. Pain is today's problems, deadlines, and other people's emergencies — the push. The gap between them is where careers are decided.
The quadrants:
| Quadrant | Axes | Plain name | What it is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vision × Strength | The golden track | Compounds — every hour makes the next hour more valuable |
| 2 | Vision × Weakness | The learning zone | Worth exactly one investment: enough to unblock the golden track |
| 3 | Pain × Strength | The firefighting track | Efficient, praised, and worth less every month |
| 4 | Pain × Weakness | The burnout trap | Costs energy, produces mediocrity, proves nothing |
How to run it
Four steps, about 25 minutes, paper or online.
Step 1 — Collect evidence, not opinions (10 min). List the last two weeks of work, hour by hour if you can. For each block, mark two things: how good you are at it (strong / weak) and who wanted it (your vision / today's pain). Opinions about yourself arrive pre-flattered; a calendar does not lie.
Step 2 — Place the evidence (5 min). Sort every block into a quadrant. Most people discover their actual calendar is 15% golden track, 60% firefighting, and the rest damage. That number is the assessment.
Step 3 — Read the map (5 min). Three questions, in order: Which single block in Q1 is worth protecting first? Which Q3 obligation could be delegated or automated within a month? Which Q4 commitment should be ended, not improved?
Step 4 — Commit to one move (5 min). One concrete change, dated, with a check-back date in two weeks. Not a life plan — one move. The Compass is re-run monthly; strategies are revised, not regretted.
The known distortions
- The competence mirage. You are good at Q3 work, so you keep doing it — being needed feels like being valued. The test is not am I good at this but does this make next year easier or harder. Firefighting is rewarded in the present and punished by the future.
- The humility discount. Q1 strengths get under-marked because they feel effortless — anyone could do this. They could not. If something feels easy to you and valuable to others, it is a strength; the effortlessness is the signal, not the counterargument.
- The weakness project. Q4 work gets defended as growth. Some is. The test: does this weakness block the golden track, or just bruise the ego? Only the blocking kind deserves training, and only up to "good enough" — minimum viable competence, not mastery.
- The vision confusion. Pain is loud and vision is quiet; under deadline pressure, everything looks like Q3. If everything lands in one quadrant, the axes are being read wrong — go back to Step 1 and use the calendar, not the memory.
Facilitator notes for one-to-one use
The Compass is self-scored, but it runs powerfully as a 25-minute coaching conversation: the coachee fills Steps 1–2 alone, then reads the map out loud while you ask only the three Step-3 questions. Do not counsel; ask. The most useful facilitator move is the silence after does this make next year easier or harder — people answer it honestly when nobody rescues them from the pause.
For teams: run it individually first, then aggregate the quadrants on a shared wall. A team whose calendar is 80% Q3 does not have a productivity problem; it has a strategy problem, and now it can see which one.
Variations
- The quarterly audit: same tool, longer memory — three months of calendar instead of two weeks. Slower to run, sharper at exposing the firefighting ratchet.
- The career crossroads version: at a job decision, score the offer against the quadrants, not your calendar. A role that is 70% Q4 is a well-paid burnout; the salary is buying your Q1 hours.
- The team allocation version: managers map their reports' quadrants instead of their own. The honest question shifts from who works hardest to who is working on the future.
Files in this folder
advantage-compass-start-here.md— the one-page map: pick your lane, file list, print listsadvantage-compass-slide-deck.html— the deck as a stage tool: presenter drawer (S), run-of-show timer, live audit device, silence timer (T); white-label = three replacementsadvantage-compass-slide-deck.pdf— the same 16 slides as a print/lectern PDF (the deck's print fallback)advantage-compass-facilitator-notes.pdf— facilitator notes for teaching the model: the 25-minute run of showadvantage-compass-workbook.pdf— the participant workbook: the model in plain words, guided working pages, a work-block log, and a re-run trackeradvantage-compass-paper-form.pdf— print-and-fill A4 answer sheet: the 6 items + two-week audit, one per participantadvantage-compass-prop-cards.pdf— poker-spec print sheet (63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed + cut guides): compass card, four quadrant cards, audit card, backs and blanksadvantage-compass-activity-poster.pdf— A3 wall poster of the model: dial, healthy calendar, exit moves, cited theory trailadvantage-compass-guide.md— this guideadvantage-compass-debrief.md— how to read the map and the four exit movesadvantage-compass-assessment.json— the 6 placement items + time-audit, plain JSONadvantage-compass-license.md— what you may do with this kit, in plain language — CC BY 4.0 plus two attribution-free commercial tiersSKILL.md— machine-readable manifest for AI agentsadvantage-compass-run-sheet.pdf— the print edition: this run sheet + the debrief sheet, bound as one A4 PDF
the debrief sheet
// the debrief questions, in full — the .md version prints on one page for the room.
One rule first: the quadrants do not judge you; they locate you. A map that flatters is a map that gets you lost.
Use with
advantage-compass-guide.md. Reading takes 10 minutes.
The 60-second read
Before any self-improvement plans, answer three questions in order:
- What share of your two weeks landed in Q1 (golden track)? Under 20% is the norm on a first run — most calendars are hostage to Q3. The number is not a verdict; it is the baseline you are negotiating against.
- Which single Q3 block is the biggest hour-thief? Not the most annoying one — the biggest. Name it in plain words: "the Tuesday report nobody reads", "being the unofficial helpdesk".
- Is anything sitting in Q4 by choice? Pain × weakness work that nobody forced on you is the quietest drain there is. It usually wears a virtue's clothes: "I should be more well-rounded."
Quadrant by quadrant
Q1 — Vision × Strength: protect, then expand.
This is the only quadrant where hours compound. Two moves: first protect the existing blocks (put them on the calendar as appointments with yourself, not leftovers), then expand by subtraction — every hour reclaimed from Q3 or Q4 goes here first, not to new obligations.
Q2 — Vision × Weakness: train to "good enough", then stop.
The learning zone is real, but it has a spending limit. The limit is minimum viable competence: enough to unblock the golden track, no further. A would-be speaker who fears slides learns enough slide craft to not distract — and stops. Mastery here is procrastination in a productivity costume.
Q3 — Pain × Strength: delegate, automate, or taper.
The trap wears a salary and a compliment. Three exits, in order of preference: hand it to someone whose Q3 is their Q1 (for them it is the golden track — this is what delegation actually is), automate the repeatable part, or taper your involvement down month by month. What you must not do is get better at it — excellence in Q3 raises the demand.
Q4 — Pain × Weakness: end it, don't improve it.
Effort here has negative yield: it costs energy, produces average output, and crowds out Q1 hours. The exit is not training — it is removal. Negotiate it away, trade it, or quit the arrangement that requires it. "But it's my job" is a Q4 answer to a Q1 question: the job description can be renegotiated, your calendar cannot be refunded.
The two-week audit, quantified
| Quadrant | Your hours | Healthy share | If you are over |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 golden track | ____ | 40%+ | Expand the definition — you may be hiding comfort inside "vision" |
| Q2 learning zone | ____ | 10–15% | Check for gold-plating: training past the point of unblocking |
| Q3 firefighting | ____ | under 30% | Pick the biggest block; run the three exits |
| Q4 burnout trap | ____ | under 5% | Something needs to end, and you already know what |
The healthy shares are not commandments — they are what the calendar of a person with a strategy tends to look like. A quarter spent launching something new legitimately looks different. What is never healthy: Q3 + Q4 above 60%, quarter after quarter.
When the map disagrees with your self-image
The audit says 5% golden track; your self-image says "I'm basically doing what I love." Both are honest — they measure different things. The self-image measures preference; the calendar measures allocation. When they disagree, believe the calendar: allocation is what the next three years will be built from. Preference is what the exit interview will be about.
The reverse distortion also pays a visit: people in a hard Q3 season (a launch, a crisis, a rescue) read their temporary calendar as a permanent character flaw. Seasons end. Re-run the compass after the season, not during it — but do re-run it. "Temporary" that is never re-examined is how Q3 becomes a career.
The exit moves, as one-liners
- Q1: "This hour makes the next hour more valuable. Protect it like a client meeting."
- Q2: "Learn it until it stops blocking me. Then spend the rest of the budget on Q1."
- Q3: "Being good at this is the trap. Hand it, automate it, or taper it."
- Q4: "Improving this is still spending my best hours on my worst work. End it."
Re-running the compass
Monthly, 25 minutes, same four steps. The point of a re-run is not the score — it is the delta: which quadrant grew, which shrank, and whether the one move from last month actually happened. A compass you consult once is a horoscope.
who it's for · what it leaves behind
Who is the Advantage Compass for?
Facilitators and coaches first: it runs as a 25-minute one-to-one coaching conversation, the strategy session of a career workshop, or a standalone talk on the model itself — the facilitator notes carry the full run of show and the slide deck carries the 25 minutes on screen. But it is built for anyone whose calendar is full and whose direction is not — professionals at a crossroads, managers allocating a team, and individuals re-running it monthly as a strategy check. No facilitator required: the self-scored version is complete on its own.
How is it different from a personality or strengths test?
Tests measure traits; the Compass measures allocation. Personality is stable — your calendar is not. Six items and a two-week audit tell you where your hours actually went, which quadrant is under-fed, and what one move changes it. The output is not a label; it is a dated commitment plus a re-run date. A tool that locates you is useful every month; a tool that labels you is used once.
Can my AI agent use this folder?
Yes. Every folder ships a SKILL.md skill file: frontmatter for matching, plus runnable prep commands — fetch the quadrant cards and the debrief, then build the live online version with formlm-cli so each re-run lands in your own workspace with automatic scoring. The three-step workflow (discover, install, run) lives on the skills page, and the folder is listed in catalog.json.
Is it really free?
Yes — CC BY 4.0, no account, no email wall inside a folder. Download it, run it as a coaching session, adapt the wording for your own program, rebrand it for your workshop. Attribution keeps everything free. You may also find this folder bundled on third-party marketplaces — what that purchase buys is the packaging convenience; the license is the same either way.
make it live
The paper version is built for a pen and two honest weeks. If you want the online version — the same 6 items and the two-week audit as a live form, with automatic scoring and monthly re-runs in your own workspace — two ways:
for AI agents
$ formlm-cli smart generate --input "Personal strategy self-assessment for the Advantage Compass: 6 Likert items (1-5) on strength-awareness, vision-clarity, pain-share, firefighting-trap, burnout-exposure and golden-track-protection (items 3-5 reverse-scored), plus two open questions - a two-week time audit estimating hours per quadrant, and one committed move with a check-back date. Self-paced, 25 minutes, monthly re-run"
Step 4 of the agent workflow: npm install -g @formlm/cli, log in once, and the prep above runs itself. The form and its data live in your own workspace.
— or, with a mouse —
Open the free self-assessment template on FormLM
and paste the items from advantage-compass-assessment.json — the template already scores the reverse items and keeps re-runs comparable.
// optional, not required — the paper version in this folder is complete on its own. free account on their side.
take this folder with you
// every file downloads as a plain file. no account, no email wall inside a folder.