A life of intention is a life without regret
Why-bother & how-to
TLDR: Living an intentional life is important and involves several steps, all of which are covered by timeboxing. If you can follow a method like this, you’re likely to have fewer regrets. Cat’s in the Cradle puts it well.
Word count: 720
Read time: 4 min
The *intentional life* has become a cliché. Memes and platitudes on the theme are frequently fed to us on Meta, X, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. This expression of yearning is easily ported into the physical world via Amazon or Etsy, where you can buy: Intention Planners, Crystal Grid Seed of Life Intention Boards, Intention—Setting Guides for Manifesting, Life-of-Purpose Spells and much, much more.
A large proportion of the self-help genre is devoted to this. Many of the world’s religions might be understood as frameworks for living an intentional life.
It seems to be a very big deal.
But why should we pursue an intentional life? And how might we do so, practically?
This blog is about both the why-bother as well as the how-to, which we’ll start with.
How-to
First, an intention needs to be born, to occur. We need to give ourselves the time and space for our true intentions — big or small — to rise to the surface. Running, swimming, driving, mowing, taking baths or showers, talking to someone, provide fertile ground for bearing intentions in the first place.
Next, we need to notice them when they happen. Our lives are filled with countless thoughts, hopes, desires, wishes, and wistful sighs—all of which could be intentions. But we don’t always see them or attend to them, especially as our digital devices pull constantly at the thread of our attention.
After noticing we need to find a way to hold on to them. Jot them down, physically or digitally. Create a record that you’ll be able to return to when you need it.
Then select the intentions that matter. Selecting is an act of focus—it’s looking at your list of intentions and asking: Which of these do I want to see happen in my life? This process of selection allows for clarity, helping you move from a sea of jumbled possibilities to a set of deliberate actions that carry personal significance.
Once selected, make a commitment to implement them. Setting an intention means much more than just hoping or wishing; it’s about allocating a time and making it happen. The aim is to anchor your intention in a real, specific moment, building a bridge between intention and action. By setting intentions in this way, you increase the likelihood (by approximately 2.5x) that they’ll come to pass.
The journey from intention to reality culminates in action. Intentions alone won’t shape a life; we need to cash them in and we do that by taking action.
A simple system to do all this consistently
Noone’s going to run through the list above each time a potential intention occurs!
So how can we make all of the above happen consistently and easily, so that our daily actions add up to the intentional life we’re after?
There may be many ways to do it but regular readers of this blog will be anticipating the suggestion that timeboxing is a system, method and mindset that will deliver on all of the above — from having them to noticing to logging, to selecting, to committing, to enacting. Every day.
Timeboxing is a simple means of living an intentional life.
A system to establish a habit. A habit to provide a purpose.
Why-bother?
Back to the why-bother question: why lead an intentional life?
Because the examples of what it can give us are just delicious. I’ve written often about how we’d spend our time better if we implemented our intentions more:
Would you like to have more of these kinds of things in your life?
What else might you want more of?
Song
Cats in the Cradle (written by Harry & Sandra Chapin) is lovely. The above extract from the lyrics is on page 92 (of the English version) of Timeboxing. It has a beautiful melody. It also touches tenderly on parent-child relationships, that life is over in the blink of an eye, missed opportunities abound, and mistakes so easily reverberate across generations.
Heed the warning in the lyrics!
Choose the life you want to lead — the life you’ll want to have led.
Marc
Links you may like
7 days of Timeboxing (the free email micro-course)
Timeboxing, the book (US)
Timeboxing, the book (UK)
Timeboxing, el libro (Español)
Connect with me on LinkedIn (I will say yes!)
Damn, Marc. Pulling out the Harry Chapin is a good way to make me cry.