Intentionality

There are so many people who don’t know what they want. And I think that, in this world, that’s the only thing you have to know — exactly what you want. ... Doing what you were born to do ... That’s the way to be happy.

I have thousands of photos of my children but few that I’ve set aside to revisit. I have records of virtually every text I’ve sent since I was in college but no idea how to find the ones that meant something. I spent years blasting my thoughts to millions of people on X and Facebook even as I fell behind on correspondence with dear friends. I have ... See more

Maybe the real problem isn’t overabundance of access to information, but the invasive nature of it. In both political and spiritual realms, I’ve always self-identified as “seeker.” I like going out , into the woods or churches or protests or city alleys, and drawing my conclusions from there. I’m a reader, observer, and interviewer—always seeking t... See more

Instead of productivity, we focus on intentionality. It's not about how much you do, but about knowing why you're doing what you're doing, seeing dreams come to life, and having fun while you're doing it. Here are Intend's four principles for getting into flow and staying in touch with what matters to you:

• choosing & doing, over organizing

• aliven

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The Notebook Rule

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been fault-testing something I’m going to call The Notebook Rule.

It goes like this:

Before any interaction with a screen, I write down, in a notebook, what I intend to do. Then, as soon as I’m done doing that thing, I walk away (close the laptop, put the phone down, literally walk away, etc).

If you don’t have a good handle on what you want, or even worse, you don’t actually consult it, you could make decisions which are not really in your interests.

I

I don’t have to care about algorithms if I have people who care about me. And I get people to care about me by first demonstrating that I care about them. Some people I’ve talked with over the years have said that this seems like “too much effort,” but I counter with “it’s effort that actually pays off over time, contrasted with minimal effort th... See more