The Eighth Day of the Week

Many years ago, I wrote in The Art of Non-Conformity about the model of thinking through an ideal day. The basic idea: if you're not sure what you want to do with your life, it can help to imagine a perfect day from start to finish — what time you wake up, what you have for breakfast, how you spend each hour.

What I'll show you here is a little different, because there are two problems with the ideal-day model.

First, there's a lot of pressure in creating it. I have to decide what my perfect day looks like? That's its own source of anxiety. Second, what you'd do on a single perfect day might differ from what you'd choose if you could repeat it.

The solution to both: instead of imagining one perfect day, think about an imaginary eighth day of the week.

The thought experiment

What the eighth day looks like

This day is exactly what it sounds like — an extra day that comes along every week, maybe wedged between the weekend and the following week, or maybe midweek. On this day, time stops. All the external forces that usually occupy your hours pause. No one's expecting anything from you. The day doesn't have to be idyllic or perfect — it's that the day is yours, and it repeats.

How would you spend it, not once, but week after week — fifty-two times a year? A few prompts to get you started:

Try not to overthink it. Go with what feels right before second-guessing kicks in.

The reason this works: you don't currently have an eighth day, which means you have no existing plans for it. You're free to imagine without any inherited obligations crowding the picture.

What readers said

Real answers from real eighth days

When I asked readers how they'd spend this bonus day, the answers varied — but patterns emerged fast. Playing music. Reading. Long walks with no destination. And again and again, one specific wish: a day with no agenda at all. Jen Zeman's comment on my blog captured it beautifully.

If you have a clear picture of your own eighth day, you've identified something important that's missing or underdeveloped in your life right now. The first thing that came to mind — that's the signal. If it was "go for a walk," that might mean more unstructured movement belongs in your regular week. If it was "have no agenda," your current schedule is telling on itself.

What can you do about that?

Digging deeper

What you truly want

For much of this book, the message has been: you can't do it all. Believing otherwise will only frustrate you. But it's also true that as you focus and live more intentionally, there's a great deal you can do. These are the objectives worth devoting maximum energy to.

One tip as you start to act on what the eighth day reveals: what you want can sometimes differ from what you first imagine you want. To get to the heart of it, peel back the exterior layers covering your actual goal.

Here's a personal example. I once thought about taking pilot lessons. I love being up in the air — moving between cities, watching the world go by from 30,000 feet. When I first had the idea of learning to fly a plane, it felt like a logical fit.

The more I looked into it, the more I realized becoming a pilot wasn't the right goal for me. It would take a long time to get qualified, and at the end of the process, I'd be flying small planes for short distances. If I wanted to go further (literally), it would take even more time and money.

What I loved most about being up in the air was looking at the clouds, daydreaming while a flight attendant brought me coffee and sparkling water. That's not how it works when you're flying a small plane solo. You have to pay close attention. Minimal daydreaming. And no flight attendants with snack packets.

Plenty of people love flying lessons. For me, the exercise taught me more about what I truly wanted. What I wanted was to keep flying as a passenger — relaxed, looking out the window, letting someone else handle the controls. That was already available to me.

By contrast, going to every country in the world — one of my real goals — required hardship that most people would prefer to avoid. Visa stress, airport floors, long stretches of discomfort. I understood that 99.999 percent of people have no interest in that. But for me, facing those challenges was worth it. Pursuing the quest made me feel more alive.

You have to decide for yourself. The more you adopt other people's goals instead of choosing your own, the more likely you'll stay discontented. Finding your own way is worth the effort.

Imagining an *eighth day of the week* helps you identify what's important to you when you feel free from everyday pressures. Use those insights to prioritize your energy and make day-to-day decisions that reflect what you want.

A practice for this week

More of this, less of that

As you go through your days, pay attention to how things feel. Ask yourself: what do I want more of, and what do I want less of?

Get specific. Almost everyone wants more joy and less stress — but what creates stress for you? What brings you joy? The eighth-day exercise helps surface the answers. This practice keeps them visible.

You don't need to solve everything at once. Paying attention to how things feel is itself a form of progress — it builds the habit of noticing, which leads to better decisions over time.