Five daily Stoic questions for reflection

Stoicism seems to be making a comeback these days. With the ongoing pandemic, I’m not surprised people need more tools and ideas to help them make sense of their circumstances and life.

These five questions from the @dailystoic stopped me dead from scrolling down my IG feed:

• Is this in my control?
• Who do you spend time with?
• What does your ideal day look like?
• What’s the most important thing?
• Is this who I want to be?

It’s a great summary of the main tenets of Stoicism, phrased in actionable, reflective questions that one can use daily, or even as a thinking prompt moment to moment.

Is this in my control?

Probably the most useful and important of the Stoic tenets. Best summed up by Mark Twain:

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

This was such a useful reminder for me, now as I’m trying to grow my products. There’s so many things outside of my control when it comes to marketing and getting more customers:

• How many impressions will this tweet/post get?
• Will this tweet go viral?
• How many people will check out my profile?
• How many will click through to Lifelog?
• Will they be the right customers?
• How many will actually open their wallets?

All these are outside of my control. I can certainly try to tweet stuff, put out what I feel is interesting content, but I cannot predict which will go viral. So why bother worrying about it even? I should just put forth my best effort, iterate based on data, and let the results and opportunities take care of itself.

What’s the most important thing?

Such a ridiculously simple question, yet so important. I don’t think I ask this question enough through the days and week. With my inclination to lean on habits to run my life, it’s easy to just go on auto-pilot and forget to think about where your efforts would have maximum impact. Asking this daily every time I plan out my day, or even when I’m working on a task, will be critical for success.

What does your ideal day look like?

I wrote about what a 10× hour looks like, and how we can emulate Jeff Bezos by looking back at our last week’s calendar to remove blocks of time that didn’t move the needle on your goals. Asking what my ideal day looks like is pretty much the same. It’s about constantly auditing your calendar, and asking if this is the ideal way to spend your time. If you get too many “No’s”, then it’s a sure sign to switch things up.

Is this who I want to be?

This is the one actionable question to guide me on my identity-based goals. Is this task helping or hindering me from growing into the identity I want? If I’m serious about taking an identity-first approach to my goals, then this daily question will help in reinforcing that practice.

Who do you spend time with?

I find this question to be important when it comes to curating who you see on your social feeds. Especially with remote work, the people I spend time with are increasingly online whom I had never met in real life, or even people I label as friends. Yet I read their thoughts, their ideas, their opinions all day. My social feed on Twitter and Facebook are now the equivalent of the five chimps I spend time with and has most influence over my own thoughts and behaviours. So I must definitely choose wisely, and curate who gets on that feed.

So which questions resonate most with you? What other questions will you add?