Life Compass — Rigorous Track

A self-contained, evidence-grounded version of the Life Compass process. Each file below is complete on its own — open the week’s file and everything you need is in it, in order. You never have to jump to another document to follow the work.

This track is built to resist the ways self-reflection quietly misleads you: anchoring, social desirability, confirmation bias, bad future-prediction, and the fact that you’re the most biased possible witness to yourself.

The files, in order

1. Day 0 — Prep — gather real data (and, optionally, outside input) before you start. Do this the week before Day 1.
2. Day 1 — Excavation — gather raw material from your own life.
3. Day 2 — Values — what you stand for, grounded in evidence.
4. Day 3 — Passions — what fuels you, read from real data.
5. Day 4 — Purpose — what you’re here to contribute.
6. Day 5 — Synthesis — build the compass and test it against your life.

How the steps are tagged

Rigor trades off against finishing, so every added step is labeled:

• ◆ Core — do it. Adds little time; it’s what makes this rigorous rather than just longer.
• ◇ Optional — adds real friction (real-world data, or input from other people). Genuinely valuable, but nothing downstream depends on it. Skip freely; a finished core compass beats an abandoned perfect one.

Pace and partner

• One “day” per week is a great pace — the five days run ~5 weeks (plus the Day 0 prep week). The long gap between sessions is a feature: it’s where insight settles. Keep each day a single sitting, and start each week by re-reading last week’s file to reload context. Keep a phone note for stray thoughts between sessions and feed them in.
• Doing it with a friend? Write each day solo first, compare after — if you fill it out together you’ll converge on each other’s answers instead of your own. Use each other hardest at the disconfirmation steps (Day 2, Day 4), where an outside view catches the flattering self-story you can’t see. Agree up front on what’s shareable vs. private.

Where to put your answers

Write in a private copy, not in these files — e.g. copy each day into answers/ (which is gitignored) so the blank track stays clean and your responses stay yours.