Personal Day 7: stillness

A day for yourself and your thoughts. Today understanding matters more than action, and quiet is more useful than talk. Personal Day 7 is about understanding: it rewards whoever stops to think.

A Personal Day is worked out from your date of birth and today's date, and it runs in a cycle from 1 to 9. Below: what to spend such a day on, what to avoid, and how it shows in work, relationships and travel.

What kind of day it is

Today it is better to check than to decide. Spend time alone and pick up the thoughts you left unfinished.

The day turns inward. Do not expect much to happen around you; expect a great deal to become clear.

What to do on a Personal Day 7

• Spend an hour in silence
• Walk without company
• Read something you have been putting off
• Write your thoughts down
• Revisit an old decision
• Go to bed earlier

What to avoid

• Big decisions and signing anything
• Noisy company
• Arguing over who is right
• Guessing what others are thinking
• Filling the quiet with a screen
• Forcing a decision

Morning, evening and best hours

This morning is the best time for thinking: stay in the quiet as long as you can.

This evening, write down what became clear to you during the day.

The best hours of a Personal Day 7 are 06:00–08:00. That is the time to give to the main thing of the day.

Work

It is better to think than to act today. Take up whatever needs quiet: working something out, studying, checking a calculation, hunting down an error. Meetings and negotiations are sluggish; do not arrange them if you can help it. Work alone if you have the chance.

It is not a day for promoting or selling anything: keep the pitch for later. But it is a good day for study and for getting to the bottom of things. Read the instructions, the contract, the terms. What you understand today will save you money and stress later.

Relationships

Relationships need quiet today. If nobody is much inclined to talk, that is not a quarrel. If you share a home, sit together in silence or keep to your own corner for the evening. Analysing a relationship is useless today: the words come out colder than the feelings.

Today it is easy to fill in other people's thoughts for them: why they are silent, what they meant. Do not trust the guesses. Another person's silence says nothing about you today. It is a good day for an honest talk with yourself about what you want from the people in your life.

Travel

Quiet travel suits today. If you go, go alone, and go where there are few people: a back lane, a towpath, a small station, an empty road. Noisy places are tiring. On public transport take a book or headphones and do not keep a conversation going out of politeness.

It is better today to stay at home or go out on foot. A long walk with no aim gives you more than a trip with a timetable. If you do have to travel, check everything beforehand: you are lost in thought today, and it is easy to forget something or miss a turning.

How to tell that today is your Personal Day 7

A Personal Day takes three steps. First, the Personal Year: add your birth month, your birth day and the current year, reducing each to a single digit, then reduce the total to a single digit.

Next, the Personal Month: add the number of the current month to the Personal Year and reduce again. Finally, the Personal Day: add today's calendar date to the Personal Month and reduce to a single digit.

Example: Personal Month 5 and the 12th give 17, and 1 + 7 = 8. That is a Personal Day 8. The next day is a 9, then a 1 again.