The Portfolio Career Canvas
A practical framework for accounting for alllllll your forms of work
The conversations I have with clients often begin with a quiet confession:
"I feel like I'm failing at having a real career."
Mind you, these aren't aimless professionals. These are directors at Fortune 500 companies, consultants billing $400/hour, and entrepreneurs who've built, scaled, and sold successful businesses.
Yet they describe themselves as scattered, unfocused, a mess.
Why do we do this to ourselves, particularly as women?
There’s a problem with what we define as “work”
I believe the problem lies in consolidating our entire contribution to the world into whatever shows up on our tax forms.
Someone asks "What do you do?" and we scramble for a LinkedIn-friendly title with a clean salary band. But this narrow frame erases everything that doesn't have a dollar sign attached.
Like the bone-deep effort of getting a toddler to eat vegetables while you're on a Zoom call. The stretched-out patience of explaining Medicare options to your aging parent. The quiet discipline of learning Python after everyone's asleep. The invisible scaffolding that holds up not just your household—but entire communities.
When we only count what gets paid, we don't just undervalue this work.
We erase it completely.
And this erasure creates what I call professional dysphoria—that haunting feeling that you're failing at something no one can quite define. It's the slow ache of performing incredibly complex, high-value work without language, status, or recognition.
The truth is, most of us are managing six types of labor at any given time:
Wage Work
Caregiving
Acts of Service
Upskilling
Exploratory R&D
Self-Care
What you need is a full-spectrum accounting of your portfolio of labor—all the debits and credits of how you invest your time, attention, and energy.
I call this… your Portfolio Career Canvas!
Your Wage Work
Definition: Traditional paid roles where you trade time and skills for money
Examples: Full-time jobs, consulting and freelance work, side-hustles, etc
These are your predictable income streams. They provides stability, benefits, and professional development opportunities.
But… wage work, if we are not careful, loves to sprawl. And without boundaries, it will consume every available hour and brain cell. It'll creep into your evenings, weekends, and every corner of your mental space that could be reserved for other equally important work. The key is treating this as one part of your overall portfolio of labor.
Questions to ask yourself:
Is this work energizing or draining me?
Am I learning and growing from doing this, or just going through the motions?
How much of my identity is wrapped up in this job?
What boundaries do I need to protect time for other forms of my labor?
Your Caregiving
Definition: Unpaid labor that keeps the people you love functioning
Examples: Parenting, elder care, supporting a partner through challenges, being that friend that people call when they’re in crisis, managing family logistics
This work rarely shows up on our resumes, but it's often the most skilled work you do. Managing a toddler's meltdown while making dinner? That's project management under extreme pressure. Coordinating care for an aging parent while working full-time? That's executive-level strategic planning!
Caregiving work requires emotional intelligence, crisis management, long-term planning, negotiation skills, and the ability to make complex decisions with incomplete information. These are exactly the skills that make people excellent managers, consultants, and leaders.
Yet we treat caregiving like it's not "real work." We apologize for it. We hide it from professional conversations. We act like it's a distraction from our "actual" careers instead of recognizing it as a core investment of our time and energy.
Questions to ask yourself:
What skills am I developing through my caregiving?
Who in my circle could provide support or share the load of said caregiving responsibilities so I can take care of myself too?
How can I honor and celebrate this work instead of hiding it?
Your Acts of Service
Definition: Unpaid labor you choose to do for your community
Examples: Mentoring, volunteering, organizing community events, advocacy work, serving on boards, being the person who plans team celebrations
This work can be deeply identity-affirming. It reminds you who you are beyond your job description and connects you to something larger than yourself. It's often where you get to use skills that your wage work doesn't tap into.
Acts of service also build networks in ways that traditional networking events never could. When you show up consistently for causes you care about, you meet like-minded people who share your values. These relationships often lead to unexpected opportunities both in and outside of wage work contexts.
Questions to ask yourself:
How can I contribute to my communities of choice in ways that leverage my unique strengths?
How (if at all) does this labor connect to my broader life or career goals?
Your Upskilling
Definition: Intentional learning that builds capabilities for future opportunities
Examples: Taking courses, reading industry books, experimenting with AI tools, attending conferences, getting certifications, learning new software
Most people treat learning like a a nice-to-have. But given the pace of change today, continuous skill-building will be mission-critical career work that deserves regular dedicated time and energy from you. Because the half-life of skills is shrinking rapidly. What got you to where you are today might not be enough to get you where you want to go tomorrow.
And upskilling generally encourages your curiousity and excitement so things don’t become stale from a wage work perspective.
Questions to ask yourself:
What skills do I need for where I want to be in one or two years from now ?
How can I make learning a consistent practice rather than something I do when I have time?
What's my preferred learning style, and am I honoring it?
Your Exploratory R&D
Definition: Messy, uncertain, idea-stage labor that may (or may not!) become something bigger than it is today
Examples: Writing a book draft, launching a newsletter, testing a product prototype, or AI classes
This is where breakthrough happens. It's a risky and vulnerable space that is often (but not always) unpaid, but it's the space where you become who you're in the process of becoming. This work rarely has clear outcomes or timelines, which can make it feel an indulgent or wasteful investment.
This space is where you test ideas before fully committing to them. Think of these like an “unattached” two way door situation; you can always walk away from them if they don’t feel right or make financial sense.
Questions to ask yourself:
What ideas have I been carrying around that deserve exploration?
What would I attempt if I knew I couldn't fail?
How can I protect time for messy, uncertain work?
Your Self Care
Definition: Intentional effort to restore and sustain your mental, emotional, and physical capacity
Examples: Therapy, exercise, meditation, adequate sleep, time off, creative hobbies, spiritual practices
You are the vessel through which all labor flows. Nothing in your system of labor will function properly when or if you are completely depleted. Recovery isn't selfish; it is deeply strategic.
And self-care is also about understanding your own rhythms and working with them instead of against them. Honor what works for you.
Questions to ask yourself:
Where do I need stronger boundaries to protect my wellbeing?
How can I build restoration into my routine?
Now Your Turn
Step1: Download my free.99 Portfolio Career Canvas workbook
Step 2: Audit your current labor across these six distinct categories
Step 3: Identify potential misalignments between time spent and core values held
Step 4: Design an experiment or two to build a integrated labor portfolio
I hope through this process of going through this exercise that you you discove rthat you're not scattered, unfocused, or failing at life or your career.
You're, instead, managing a beautifully complex portfolio of labor that keeps you growing, your people cared for, and your community thriving.
And remember…
All of your labor is valid.
Your care is work.
Your curiosity is not a detour: it’s information!
👉 Watch my Portfolio Career Canvas tutorial (it’s FREE!)
👉 Download the Portfolio Career Canvas Workbook here
If you're navigating your own transition toward a portfolio career, I invite you to join our community at Build with Brie, where we're supporting each other through this evolution. And for those interested in my personal journey through this territory, my essay "The Sovereign Builder" offers an unfiltered account of my own 20-year path toward professional reclamation.
Absolutely love this framework! Thank you for recognizing the unpaid but time intensive labor that goes into caregiving, acts of service, and exploratory R&D. So important for feeling truly fulfilled but rarely gets attention in the conversation of portfolio careers and multiple income streams.