That title is mostly true. To be fully transparent were 4 exceptions (listed at the end) but from September 14th, 2025 to December 14th, 2025 I only took the stairs when traveling between the floors of a building. Keep reading if you’re interested in knowing why.
It all started this summer. I was taking the BART from SF to Oakland after leaving my internship when I spied someone reading on BART (a somewhat rare observation relative to breakdancing). Because I’m a book addict I weaseled my way closer to that person until I could more clearly make out the title. I quickly wrote it down and got a digital copy later that week.
The book in question was “Tiny Experiments” by Anne-Laure Le Cunff.
As a short review I’d say the book is probably the most insightful and useful self-help-esque book I read not just in 2025 but probably since 2020 (really more of a psychology book to be frank), much better than your run-of-the-mill self help book (Think and Grow Rich🤮) so I’d highly recommend getting a copy.
Anyways, in the book Anne-Laure introduces the concept of 'pacts,' which are time bound experiments that encourage you to take small, actionable steps toward better mental, physical, or social well-being. Pacts avoid the mental trap of ‘habits’ because you set a clearly defined start and end date - avoiding any sort of overcommitment to something that may not work out. Her recommended pact length is 10 days, so to test her method I set a pact for 10 days that I was only going to take the stairs. The first day I was extremely motivated, so it was not hard to avoid the elevators in that time. The second day was more of the same. Around the 6th day, I started questioning a bit the point of what I was doing. “What benefit are you getting out of this?” a few friends asked. I did not have an answer at that time. I kept going because well it was only for 10 days anyways so why quit on day 7?
10 days came and went and on day 11 I was faced with a choice. I had completed my 10 day pact so I had every right to stop and leave with the satisfaction that brought. Or….I could keep going.
I kept going.
My reasoning was - I’d already done 10 days, what harm could one more day do? One more day kept stacking up and pretty soon it was late November. By accident I’d become the type of person who took the stairs even when the elevator was available. What I think is remarkable is the fact that there was never any goal in mind of “I want to only use the stairs for 4 months”. Had that been my angle, frankly, I would have failed in the first week. But the framing that Anne-Laure created allowed me to go far beyond what I would have done had I attempted to make some large commitment ahead of time. It also allowed me to brush off setbacks like the exceptions listed below because the goal wasn’t focused on keeping a perfect record.
Did I get any benefit from only using the stairs? Potentially some. This not by any means a scientific study but I resided in the same dorm on the same floor the past 2 years and in the period of September 2024 to December 2024 my Apple Watch recorded the following for flights of stairs climbed each day:
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September 2024 - 7 floors
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October 2024 - 13 floors
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November 2024 - 8 floors
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December 2024 - 9 floors
This is in contrast with the period September 2025 to December 2025:
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September 2025 - 16 floors
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October 2025 - 19 floors
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November 2025 - 20 floors
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December 2025 - 18 floors
There’s definitely omitted variable bias in the form of routines, general activity levels, etc. But the data is certainly interesting.
I do think I had an advantage in that the main elevator to my dorm was quite old and slow so I would get a bit frustrated waiting minutes just to go up a few floors. Many times I could arrive at my floor before someone who took the elevator at the same time. That being said, I still took the stairs even when in buildings with much faster elevators than my dorm’s.
Mentally, it’s hard to quantify, but, I feel that willingly choosing to do the effortful thing over and over when presented with effortless convenience has had a positive effect on my psyche. Often times even when I was really tired and every bone in my body was telling me to chill and take the elevator, I’d still take the stairs, and it turns out - taking the stairs was never as bad an experience as my mind would sometimes make it out to be. Oftentimes, I’d be surprised at how quickly I’d make it to the third floor. “It’s over so soon?” I would mentally ask myself. Even when hauling a full load of laundry down to the basement from the third floor, it was never as bad as my mind would make it seem before I actually did it.
Perhaps when you take the effortless option for so long your mind consistently overestimates the effort necessary for the effortful option. Fortunately, it seems the more you put in effort, the more accurately you are able to estimate it in the future.
- Nana
P.S. As I’m writing this I’m realizing that I used escalators every now and then (off campus) and there’s no real difference between an escalator and elevator in terms of purpose….My only defense to that is that I’m the type of person who still walks up (or down) a moving escalator so functionally they might as well remain stairs for me. Feel free to email if you disagree.
List of Exceptions:
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Exception 1: I went to see a doctor in NYC and I was in a bit of a time crunch so I took the elevator up to the 11th floor. That doesn’t excuse me taking the elevator down to the lobby after the appointment though - that was just me being lazy.
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Exception 2: During fall break I went on a school sponsored apple picking trip and when I returned back to campus I took the elevator while helping an acquaintance carry apples up to her boyfriends room. This was early on in the challenge so I hadn’t yet gotten used to asking people to inconvenience themselves on my behalf (or take the elevator without me). I stopped having that issue later on. As it turns out, the majority of the people I associate with are
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Exception 3: I was at an “event”. My friend left the venue, I was concerned about his whereabouts, so I took the elevator 3 times alongside some mutual friends to expedite locating him.
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Exception 4: My friend (who was the President of the Swarthmore African Students Association) asked me for help in setting up the SASA Gala (the biggest event the group does each year). We were moving heavy materials (such as drinks and tables) across campus, so an elevator was unfortunately necessary if we wanted to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. As a side note I somehow got roped into being the co-host for this event despite not having any actual leadership roll in the org because the rest of the leadership were bums or something of that sort (present for the event but not the setup). Africans smh.