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I love to learn and I enjoy sharing what I know. The reason I built The Smarter Collector in the first place was to share the lessons I’ve learned about sports cards and collecting. My curiosity isn’t limited to just sports cards, though. I’ll seek out interesting books, documentaries, and podcasts that get me thinking.
A few weeks ago, I started reading a book called Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. The whole concept of the book is how humans can make the most out of their finite (on average, 4,000 weeks) lifetime.
One idea Burkeman introduced struck a chord with me. He calls it The Art of Creative Neglect. At its core, The Art of Creative Neglect means learning to embrace the “joy of missing out.” Of course, I immediately drew the connection to sports cards and began reflecting on how a wandering eye has shaped my own collection.
In this Collecting Guide, we’re going to share Burkeman’s definition of creative neglect and explore ways in which you can deploy creative neglect in your everyday collecting. And maybe in the end, we’ll find a way to get the most out of our finite time as sports card collectors.
What is Creative Neglect in Sports Card Collecting?
Burkeman defines The Art of Creative Neglect as a deliberate strategy to focus on what truly matters by choosing not to invest time and energy into less important tasks or goals. Given the brevity of our finite resources—in the book, it’s our life; in sports cards, it’s our time, energy, and money—we cannot do everything. We must consciously neglect certain obligations, distractions, or opportunities to prioritize the things that align with our deepest values and aspirations.
Burkeman goes on to break it into three actionable principles:
Pay Yourself First
Limit Your Work in Progress
Resist the Allure of Middling Priorities
Let’s take a look at each.
Pay Yourself First: Prioritize Key Cards
In the book, “Pay Yourself First” means prioritizing the activities and projects that matter most to you before letting other demands consume your time. That means filling your time with “Big Rocks”—life-enriching activities—first, so they don’t get crowded out by less important things.
How it Applies to Sports Cards:
Count me as one of thousands of people who ask, “Should I go after the hardest card to find in the set first or last?” It’s so tempting to start a new collecting project and dip your toes into the cards that are always available. But what happens when you’ve spent your whole budget only to run out of funds when that big card comes up? Or worse yet, the big card doesn’t show up, you burn out on the project, and move on to something else.
Takeaway: Discover the cards that matter to you the most and spend your time, energy, attention, and money on those cards.
Limit Your Work in Progress: Stay Focused
Burkeman discusses the importance of focusing on fewer tasks or projects at a time to avoid spreading yourself too thin. By limiting what’s on your plate, you can devote more energy and attention to completing high-priority work effectively, rather than juggling too many things at once and making shallow progress.
How it Applies to Sports Cards:
If everything on your want list is a priority, then nothing is really a priority. It’s human nature to be drawn to big and exciting things. I think that’s one of the draws of sports cards—that they connect us to a hobby that’s much bigger than ourselves. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to enjoy collecting if you start 70 different PSA Set Registries from scratch all at once.
Takeaway: Focus on the most important part of your collecting and pause the projects on the periphery.
Resist the Allure of Middling Priorities: Narrow Your Goals
While it’s a bit duplicative of “Limit Your Work in Progress,” “Resisting the Allure of Middling Priorities” further emphasizes the need to say no to tasks that aren’t important. Burkeman explains that middling priorities can be the most insidious distractions because they seem worthwhile enough to justify attention, yet they prevent you from addressing your most significant goals or values.
How it Applies to Sports Cards:
Like Burkeman, I’m going to suggest completing an exercise based on Warren Buffett’s advice around prioritization called the 25/5 rule:
Write down your top 25 goals in collecting.
Circle the top 5 goals on that list.
Avoid the other 20 at all costs.
The other 20 goals are now classified as distractions, even if they seem important or enticing. You can only pull these goals into the top 5 once you’ve completed one of the existing top 5 goals.
Takeaway: Narrow your focus on what you deem are the most important collecting projects.
Practical Tips for Improving at the Art of Creative Neglect
Perform a self-discovery exercise to figure out why you collect what you collect.
Focus on completing one collecting project before moving on to the next.
Identify cards or hobby-related activities to which you can “just say no.”
Leverage tracking tools like Card Ladder or apps to monitor when those big cards you're looking for pop up.
Conclusion
Creative neglect isn’t about giving up; it’s about choosing wisely. By paying yourself first, limiting your work in progress, and resisting middling priorities, you can align your collecting habits with what truly matters to you. Embrace your limits and enjoy the journey. After all, we only have one life to live; we might as well build the best collection we can in the process.