LIFE COMPASS

One-Page Anchor

One sitting. ~25 minutes. You finish today.

This is the minimum viable version of this whole repo. A finished small thing beats an abandoned big one — so if you only ever do one thing here, do this. The 5-day workbook and the rigorous track are here when (if) you want to go deeper. You don’t need them to start.

Copy this to answers/anchor.md (gitignored) and fill in the blanks. Don’t polish.

1. Three values (10 min)

Don’t use a list. Instead, recall two things:

Add one more that you’d defend even when it’s costly → __

Now rank them 1–2–3. When two of your choices collide, #1 wins. That ranking is the whole point — it’s what does the work in a hard decision.

  1. __
  2. __
  3. __

2. A theme for this season (5 min)

Not a five-year plan — one sentence for the next 90 days. Themes flex where goals snap.

“For the next 90 days I’m optimizing for __ over __.”

3. One decision rule (3 min)

A single if-then you can apply on a Tuesday without re-reading anything.

“When I’m stuck between options, I default to the one that __.”

4. One review date (2 min)

Re-read this on ______ (≈90 days out) and ask two questions:

  1. Do my three values still rank in that order?
  2. Does my theme still fit, or does the next season need a new one?

Optional: one small next action

The four steps above are the whole anchor — reflection, done at your desk. If you ever want to add the one thing reflection can’t do (generate new information about a direction by actually trying it), there’s a deliberately tiny, optional step for that in Optional add-ons. Ignore it unless you want it.

The only thing that has to be true

You actually look at this again on the review date. Put it in your calendar now. A clear-headed page you re-read beats a perfect one you forget.

That’s the anchor. If it earns its keep over a few cycles, go deeper. If it doesn’t, you lost 25 minutes — not five days.