In this experiment I (and I hope you) see what happens when we live by a certain dictum one day a week:

At each moment from the moment you wake, do without hesitation the thing that most needs to be done at that moment, regardless of how appealing it is. Bring your full attention and whole heart to each such act as you do it, as though it’s your sole job on earth.

[Read the original post]

Or, if you prefer Marcus Aurelius’s more nuanced version:

Hour by hour resolve firmly, like a Roman and a man, to do what comes to hand with correct and natural dignity, and with humanity, independence, and justice. Allow your mind freedom from all other considerations. This you can do, if you will approach each action as though it were your last, dismissing the wayward thought, the emotional recoil from the commands of reason, the desire to create an impression, the admiration of the self, the discontent with your lot. See how little a man needs to master, for his days to flow on in quietness and piety: he has but to observe these few counsels, and the gods will ask nothing more.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations II.v

This is something I am doing regularly now, but I’ll make sure to do it on Tuesday, November 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29 because in the original post I proposed taking one day a week (perhaps Tuesday) to live this way.

I’ll record my experiences here, and I encourage you to share your own in the comments.

The Log

1 Nov 2022 (8:49am)

A quick note to anyone trying this today.

In the comments a number of people asked a good question I didn’t really answer in the post: how do you know what the thing that “most needs to be done” is?

I answered this several times in the comments, and here’s basically what I’ve been saying:

There are lots of ways to interpret the idea of the “right” thing. I’m talking about acting from a place of honesty about what you think probably is the best contribution you could make to the moment. Note that obsessing about what to do is not likely to be the best contribution. A way to simplify it is to question your motives — are you doing it because you actually think it’s right, or just because it’s convenient, or it makes you look good, or some other motive? This doesn’t have to be an elaborate thinking exercise, but just a quick check-in to assess where this prospective action is coming from, and to try to find an action that comes from the best place in you. This sense might have to be developed, but I think we all have it.

For the most part, you’re basically checking in with your conscience frequently about why you’re doing what you’re doing. I think most of us can tell immediately if we’re trying to get away with a compromise, or if we’re really doing what we know is best.

Another time-honored tool for self-guidance is to ask, “What would so-and-so do in this situation?” with so-and-so being a figure whose virtue and honesty you admire. You could use Jesus, Marcus Aurelius, your grandmother — whoever has always amazed you with their honesty and fortitude for doing the right thing.

2 Nov 2022 — Recap of the first Tuesday

Wonderful day, and I learned a lot. I got a lot done, and went to bed without remorse.

I had a to-do list for the day, and I did everything on it. That wasn’t precisely the goal of the day, but it was the result. Nothing came up that seemed honestly more important than finishing the list.

There were a lot of instances where I noticed the impulse to cut corners, to settle for doing a B-plus job. A lot of these instances were situations that come up a lot.

For example, on days when I don’t have time to go to the gym, I do a short dumbbell workout at home just before lunch. My standard is to do three exercises — nine sets in total. Quite often, the last exercise is something unpleasant, like squats, and I often bargain with myself to do it later in the day and just go ahead and have lunch — I’ll do those three quick last sets before dinner, I tell myself. Sometimes I end up fulfilling that halfhearted promise, sometimes I don’t.

I noticed this attempt to compromise, and did the last exercise anyway. Then, after doing the first two sets, I didn’t want to bother with the last one, and I already felt like I’d done enough. This is another compromise I often am tempted to make — who cares about that last set? I’ve already done enough. Maybe I’ll injure myself if I “push too hard.”

This is all self-deceptive nonsense, but I fall for it a lot because it really doesn’t seem all that important. I know that on any other day I would have sold myself short, not only on my intended workout, but on my own ability to properly do what I said I’d do.

The day was full of these sorts of encounters with my sneaky, ready-to-compromise-my-intentions self. I had the impulses to leave a few “harmless” dishes in the sink, to read a little longer and meditate a little less, and to indulge

I also had many, many instances in which my phone ended up in my hand due to habit, and instead of quickly checking my email or Instagram before putting it away, as I customarily do, I put it away immediately.

I by no means behaved perfectly, but that’s not the point. In each instance in which my conscience warned me against compromising my intention, I listened and did the right thing. That’s not to say there was no unnoticed self-deception, but I didn’t let myself do anything I knew to be less than the right thing to do. This was a little harder than living normally, on one level, but such a relief on another level. I didn’t have this sinking feeling (one I now realize I feel often) that I might not get away with the “probably good enough” choice I’m making.

Not least of all, I really enjoyed the day. I liked doing things with the “correct and natural dignity” Marcus Aurelius recommends. I did things one at a time, and felt comfortable making Thing Two wait while I did Thing One, feeling confident there was no better way. I also reverted to mindfulness whenever I noticed I was absorbed in aimless thinking, rather than indulge in it for a bit longer, as I often do.

Most of these little moral forks in the road were over small things, but the feeling of always taking the better fork whenever I noticed it was indeed a fork — that was no small thing. By bedtime I felt clear minded, remorseless, and proud of what I’d done, even though it was a modest day.

This morning I woke up and realized that I was no longer under any oath to do the right thing. I could take my time getting out of bed, and put on a Youtube video while I make coffee instead of mindfully meeting the cold and grogginess of getting up. I could eat a needlessly indulgent breakfast. The idea of exercising those freedoms felt deflating — am I really going back to the compromised version of myself so quickly? Why? Yesterday was great. I want more of that.

3 Nov 2022 — Thoughts about the day after

Yesterday was not such a productive day, which is interesting because I didn’t feel like I was behaving too differently than the day before. I still wanted to do the right thing, but I didn’t have a commitment to it. Doing the right thing returned to being an elective procedure, an option at each juncture, but I didn’t have to hold myself to it. And the day became one full of compromises and halfhearted follow-through, and in the end I wished I’d taken up the commitment again.

The difference seemed so small at each decision point — to do a thing a little later rather than now, to not worry about doing my best here, to “give myself a break” there… and the overall result was so mediocre. Not a disaster at all, but dramatically less rewarding and productive. I could see my outlook reflect this. Yesterday the future felt so bright because I knew I was making the best one I could, and today I felt the usual worry and uncertainty.

This difference brought a disturbing thought to the surface: the source of my worry about the future is not so much about what will happen to me, but whether I’ll do the right thing in response. I’m afraid the best version of me won’t show up when I need him. It’s possible that this is the central fear in my life, because that feeling was completely absent Tuesday.

The contrast between the two days was so obvious, it’s starting to seem like the “day dedicated to good” option is really the only sensible option.

Today is Thursday and I am doing it again. I will report.

Last week Tuesday went so well, and Wednesday was so comparatively “blah” that I had another Do The Right Thing All Day day on Thursday the 5th, and it also went really well. I kept my list with me all day, and referred to it constantly, until it was all done and then I felt naturally inclined to use my remaining hours well, because I was in such a good groove.

9 Nov 2022

The second official Tuesday was yesterday, and I struggled. In the intervening days I was living with varying levels of commitment to the original ideal, which meant accepting varying levels of laxity, and so by the time Tuesday came around, I had had an excellent week, but it had been a while since I had met the truly uncompromising standard I had aimed for the first Tuesday. I was doing “more than good enough” and I felt good about that, good about the future, but this is not at all the same as “doing without hesitation the thing that most needs to be done at each moment.” That way of being is its own animal, and I think I got it confused with “being better than usual.”

Yesterday (Tuesday the 8th) I felt quite tired and put-upon all day, and felt miles from the Stoic alignment I had kept on the 1st. By mid-afternoon I knew I wasn’t doing it, and so it felt like there was nothing to maintain. I finished up my work to a respectable standard but not the standard I had hoped. I say “hoped” instead of intended because I don’t think I quite began with the same pure intention I had the first day. I didn’t review the Stoic “mission statement” the practice is supposed to keep, and so I was just vaguely trying to do the right thing. I’m going to choose another day this week (before next Tuesday) to try again, emphasizing the proper spirit.

Still, this has been an amazingly productive nine days. Not a single day I’m not proud of.

10 Nov 2022

A quick thought I forgot to add yesterday. One element that’s easy to overlook, and may be at the heart of the Mode of Being afforded by this practice, is the “do each thing as thought it’s your sole job on earth.” I’ve been focusing on (as has most of the discussion) the “do the thing that most needs doing” part. It’s very hard to do that sometimes, but I think it is this second, more subtle aspect that enables you to do it.

To me, doing a thing — emptying an unfinished tea into the drain, opening a Word document, anything — as though it’s your sole job on earth entails a certain kind of attention. You’re not just getting the thing done, you’re attending to it as though the doing itself is important. You’re not daydreaming while you pour the tea down the drain, you’re attending to the pouring, with that “correct and simply dignity” referred to by Marcus Aurelius. It’s easy to lose sight of that aspect of this practice, and if you do, I think the result is the kind of day I had Tuesday, where I had little interest in doing the things I was supposed to do, I think precisely because I didn’t take an interest in the doing at all, just in the getting done.

16 Nov 2022 — Recap of the third Tuesday

This one went much better than last week’s, and I think I understand better what was missing.

In my last update I explored the idea that how you do things is as important as doing all the right things. Half of the instruction concerns the how rather than the what — ”do everything as though it were your sole job,” or “Do everything with a simple and quiet dignity”.

I now think this attitude towards doing, this way of doing, is more important than what you do. It’s a practice of the heart. The task needs to be treated like it’s important work, even if it’s just gathering the right spices from the pantry to make dahl. Doing the right thing cannot be accomplished just by logically identifying the right thing and then doing it with the habitual “get it over with” attitude. It has to be seen as the thing you’re on this earth to do, an act that fulfills your purpose. Otherwise it’s just a kind of grinding labor that you’re still conflicted about, because you can be doing it while simultaneously not really wanting to be doing it.

To achieve that elusive state of Stoic purpose and unconflictedness, we need to attend to the task as thought it’s the only thing that bears attention. Because really, it is — if there’s something more important, do that instead. If there isn’t, do this fully. Once you’ve identified what’s probably the best next action, the rest of the world is simply set aside to attend fully to it.

This takes a certain attentional effort. You have to bring your whole mind to the task, finding a certain dignified simplicity in putting the envelope in the mailbox, passing the salt, or whatever it is the moment calls for. We quite easily daydream or ruminate as we do something that doesn’t demand all of our attention — the dishes, rote spreadsheet work, etc. To do the right thing all day and go to bed remorseless, you need to appreciate the doing. It has to be enough for that moment. Splitting the attention by doing Task A while thinking about Task B makes for inner conflict. You’re unhappily doing the thing you should do with your body, while attending to something else in your head.

One way to keep your attention on the task, I’ve found, is to pretend it is literally the last thing you do. It is your last act on this earth, the last thing you get to do — sealing this envelope, wiping up this spill, sipping this water, typing out this sentence. When it’s the right thing to do, and you know it, and you honor the act by doing it with intention and awareness, it creates that dignified feeling that can carry you through a whole day.

So most of my day was like that. At the end of the day, I kind of drifted away from it. I had dinner and then sort of forgot. We had a D&D game, on Zoom because someone was sick, and I sort of shirked my duties there because I felt like I was “done” for the day. I don’t think that’s the way to do it. Even though it was a recreational activity, there are best things to do — to be a patient listener when someone’s talking, to take the lead when it is appreciated, and so on. These might be minor things, but it was very clear that by then I considered myself off duty. So when I went to bed, I didn’t quite have that remorseless feeling, because I saw the opportunities I had missed.

24 Nov 2022 – Recap of fourth Tuesday

Another good day. I was productive, but certain tasks (writing) did take longer than I thought, and in hindsight I could have been more efficient. However, there were no “crux” moments I noticed in which I was obviously choosing to do things in a substandard way, I just could have been more vigilant about how much was accomplished in each block of time. (I’ve been working scrupulously in 25-minute Blocks again).

Because I was absorbed in writing, a very mental and not very physical kind of work, I sort of got away from last week’s insight — bringing your full body and heart to each task, as though it’s the last thing you do. I suppose that’s why it felt productive but not exactly transcendental.

Still, on both Tuesdays and non-Tuesdays I frequently remember that attitude, and bring it to a single task here and there — emptying the garbage, chopping carrots, etc — which sometimes bleeds over into the next task and so on. That is really the key, and it seems to be just a matter of practice. It’s not identical to mindfulness, because it’s a kind of attitudinal thing rather than a cognitive thing, but it is definitely compatible.

One help in remembering this attitude was — don’t laugh — pretending that Marcus Aurelius was watching me. I pictured the old man watching me from above somehow, not knowing who I was, which was enough to awaken that hint of Stoic piety in me and return my mind and heart to the task. I respect the guy a lot and I’m grateful that his effect on the world was so resonant that it changes how I go about making dinner or dusting shelves.

30 Nov 2022 — Final Thoughts

Yesterday, the final Tuesday, was a home run as far as productivity was concerned. I did everything on my list, which is still a very rare feeling for me. Productivity, along with my ability to relax while I get things done, has increased throughout the whole month, partly due to this experiment and partly due to other factors (meditation going well, and the workload is more urgent these days).

Despite the raging productivity level of the day, I only felt the “Stoic groove” for parts of the day, when I was deliberately keeping undivided attention on the task. We don’t always need undivided attention to do a task, but it’s virtually always an option, and I think it’s the necessary ingredient to generate that beautiful Mode of Being/Doing that makes it all feel so light and rewarding.

Here are the main conclusions I’ve come to at this point, about this practice of Do-the-Best-Thing-All-Day-Long Tuesday:

There is an elusive mode you can find yourself in while you’re doing this practice, one that is very rewarding and self-sustaining, far beyond the everyday rewards of “doing your best” or “getting stuff done.” It’s a kind of perfect mental/emotional/somatic groove, which guides you to and through the next thing. It feels amazing. You’re free of a certain kind of existential pain, because you know you’re living the best you can right now; you’re naturally resistant to temptation, because few diversions seem better; the mind is quiet, because it’s devoted to the task; there’s a certain sense of piety, or devotion, or relief that you’re not only trying to improve your own lot but the Highest Good; and there’s a remorselessness throughout and at the end of the day, because you know you really lived.

How you do things is vital. The rewarding mode I described above (Eudaimonia? Ataraxis? Flow?) was elusive for me — sometimes I slipped into it (literally all day in one case) and other times I was going through the motions, grinding away at my to-do list.

About halfway through the experiment, I think I discovered what makes up most of the difference. At first glance, this practice appears to be all about getting the right things done — being honest about what you should be doing, and disciplined about doing it, and not backing off for a whole day. This is really just optimizing conventional productivity though. The practice we’re talking about requires you not just to do the task at hand in each moment, but to do it in a certain way (with no hesitation, with willingness, with undivided attention, as though it’s the last thing you do). This devotion to, or love for, the task at hand is what brings it all together, because it eliminates any divisions in your intentions — you can’t devote yourself to the task while you daydream, or wish you were doing something else, or resent your boss or the world or ponder whether you can justify a muffin as a reward when you’re done. All of that dilution of energy must be thrown out in favor of the task at hand. You need to get interested in the task, watch yourself doing it, watch your hands doing the work, and feel that sense of goodness flowing out of you into the world. That sounds dramatic, but remember that this is an expression of The Best Idea Humans Ever Had, and the stakes really couldn’t be higher.

This is why inspiration is great help, because it describes this elusive groove, this mode of doing that is so much more than our conventional modern way of “getting shit done.” I noticed, for example, that I derived a lot of energy from reading Marcus Aurelius’s version of the practice (Resolve firmly, hour by hour…!) than my own (…do without hesitation the thing that most needs to be done…). If I wasn’t checking in with Meditations throughout each Tuesday, or had never read it at all, I would be losing track of the right mindset constantly, as my habitual resentment and dread towards work took over the mind.

The “how” details matter, and great philosophers have done their best do describe them. Marcus Aurelius, in his version of the practice, lists five potential obstacles to dismiss during your efforts — the wayward thought, the emotional recoil from the commands of reason, the desire to create an impression, the admiration of the self, the discontent with your lot — and I think each needs to be ultimately recognized and addressed in turn if you’re going to do this consistently, because each can trick you in its own way.

You find this mode by trying things and circling in towards it. We all have our various familiar ways of “getting stuff done” the best we can, and you’ll inevitably begin this practice by trying those things. Ideally, you’ll start to notice which attitudes and modes of doing generate that certain elusive state, and you can sort of smell and taste your way to it, getting closer each Tuesday. Here’s how I described this iterative process in a comment:

. . . all of this experimentation is making me think that it’s less about trying to be the best version of yourself than it is doing things in a certain way (with full attention, with respect for yourself and the tools of the task / people involved, with a sense that this is why you’re here on this planet) and tuning in to the specific flavor of reward that this mode of doing creates. You get better and better at tuning into that particular mode of doing by noticing how it feels to do things in the whole gamut of ways (in a rushed way, in a deliberate way, in a half-distracted way, in a devoted way). You sort of zero in on that, with experience, in the way a chef zeroes in on the right taste for the soup, without having to think much about it or depend on a recipe.

After five Tuesdays, I’m just beginning to circle in to that mode of doing, just beginning to know what creates that self-sustaining reward flavor. But it does feel like I’m close enough to feel the direction of gravity.

Did you try this? How did it go for you?

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