Your North Star

What it is

Your North Star is your goals, your values and how you like to make decisions, in lines of your own words, in three sections: Goals, Values and How you decide. Each section holds as many lines as you like, and a line can be a few words or as much detail as you want. The more detail you give, the better your board's answers fit you. You are not asked to write it before your first question: your board learns it from what you tell it, then shows it to you to keep or change. Once you have it, it is the first thing your advisors read when you bring them a decision.

Each line stands on its own, so an answer can point to the exact line it drew on. "Retire by fifty-five" is one line. "Family dinner five nights a week" is another. "I decide slowly on money and quickly on people" is a third.

Why it matters

Anyone can answer your question. Your board answers knowing you. The North Star is where that starts. Without it, an advisor can only give the answer that suits most people. With it, the answer is weighed against what you are actually aiming at and what you will not trade away to get there.

It also keeps your board honest. When an answer says it drew on a line of your North Star, you can see that line in your own words and decide for yourself whether the answer followed it.

How it works

1. After you save your first decision (or under an answer on a later visit, if you did not save one), your board shows "Here's what I learned about you. Is this right?" with three lines filled in from your question and anything you told your Chair: your goals, what matters to you and how you like to decide.
2. You change any line you want and choose "Yes, keep this". Advicity saves each line to your board as the first version of that line. "Not now" leaves it for later, and you can add your North Star on Your board or on the North Star screen whenever you like.
3. Until you have a North Star, an answer that depends on your goals says in one line what it assumed, for example "I'm assuming you want to grow without working longer hours. Tell me if not." Choose "Tell me if not" to correct it.
4. When you ask a question, your advisor reads your North Star before answering, every line in full and with its section, so it can tell a goal from a value or a rule of thumb.
5. Where the answer drew on a line, it can point back to that line and show you its words.
6. Each version of a line is saved as it was written, and a saved version is never changed afterwards.
7. To change a line later, open the North Star screen, choose "Rewrite this line" under it, write the new words and save them. You can also choose another section for it there. They are saved as the line's next version, and your advisors read the new words from then on.
8. To add a line, choose "Add another" under the section it belongs in. Under a line that is very short, the North Star screen suggests adding why it matters, by when, or what you won't trade for it. A short line still saves.
9. To take a line out, choose "Remove this line" under it, then "Remove". Your board stops using it from then on. You can add it back any time.
10. The old words are kept. A past answer that drew on them still shows them, marked "(you've since rewritten this line)" or "(you've since removed this line)".

Which plans include it

Your North Star is included on the Paper plan, the Ink plan and the Brass plan, and it reads the same on every plan. Moving up or down a plan never hides it or changes a word of it.

Privacy and what the board keeps

Your board keeps every version of every line you write, so the words an answer drew on can never be changed after the fact. Only the people on your board can read your North Star. A viewer on your board can read it but cannot add, rewrite or remove a line. No other board can read it, and an answer on another board can never point to it.

Related features

• Getting started with Advicity
• Your board and the built-in advisors