The Position Collision Test: Why Overlapping Meanings Tell You to Redesign Your Spread

Today's Lesson When two positions in your spread ask basically the same question, they don't provide double confirmation—they create confusion. If you've got "obstacles" in position three and "challenges" in position five, you're splitting one concept across two cards when you could be exploring something entirely different. This redundancy shows up most often in spreads we've borrowed from books or online sources without adapting them to our actual question. The cards will still speak, but you're essentially asking them to repeat themselves, which wastes positions that could reveal genuinely new information. The test is simple: read your position descriptions out loud as if they're questions, then ask yourself if any two could be answered by the same card without changing your interpretation. "What's blocking me?" and "What obstacle do I face?" are functionally identical. "What am I not seeing?" and "What hidden factor matters?" overlap so heavily that most cards would fit both. When you spot this collision, you've found your redesign opportunity. Merge those positions into one stronger question, then use the freed space for something your spread wasn't asking at all—like timing, like context, like what happens after the outcome you're focused on. This matters because spread design…