About the Whole “Intention” Thing
In the young life of this website and my social media presence, the word “intention,” or at least its concept, have taken the lead in branding and theme. The application is broad, as I am constantly discovering, from large-scale goal setting and career ambitions to daily time management and productivity, but before I attach the concept to those things, I want to attach it to my personal experience and how I’m trying to live a more intentional lifestyle.
I’ve spent much of my life worried about wasting time and missing windows of opportunity, waking up and realizing I’m past my prime having never started living, whatever “living” means. I’ve bounced from job to job, interest to interest, project to project in this pursuit, always feeling like I’m in transition without ever arriving at the life I desire.
Part of that was (is) being young and still discovering what a fulfilling life means to me. Part of it was being in seasons of education or necessary transition without the time to focus on anything that wasn’t right in front of me. Plenty more times were just failing to start—see my first article.
Over the past couple years, a time of transition and self-discovery if there ever was one, I have devoted a great deal of time to figuring out myself and my goals, then building (and rebuilding) systems that support those goals and my values. I’ve gotten plenty right and plenty more wrong, and it’s a process I don’t imagine I’ll ever complete.
The word “intention” came up in that process a couple years ago, though my understanding of it has changed from then to now. It began with small things like a time management system, or figuring out a better plan for rest than just scrolling Instagram. Now I’m learning how those little things connect to the big picture: my values, my sense of purpose, my relationships, my engagement with society. After all, what’s the point of great time management if what I’m managing still isn’t worth my time? Big picture intentionality means I’m working to eliminate waste from my life and ensure even my smallest actions support my greatest values and goals.
What does this theory look like in practice? Four areas come to mind for myself, active construction zones where I am trying to build a more intentional life.
Time
I won’t belabor this one, having already referenced time management above. This was the first area I really had to figure out, along with my mental wellness strategies, and it opened the door to everything else. Success was tackling the doomscrolling problem and using a personalized take on the Bullet Journal method to keep track of my goals and to-do lists, long-term and short-term together in a practical way. Intentional use of my time is saying, “I have one life, and I’m not going to waste even a moment. I’m going to make sure that my time is filled with things that matter.”
Money
My wife and I want to travel often, and we want to make the most of those trips, which often means not doing them cheaply. That’s our Rich Life, and it requires advance planning and strategic moves with our finances. I’ve spent the last year overhauling how I look at money in order to budget move effectively, save for the things my wife and I care about, and invest well in our future. I’m not a financial guru; I couldn’t tell you a thing about Wall Street to save my life (There’s a wolf, isn’t there?) I didn’t know where to start with handling finances, and truthfully, I still don’t. Thankfully, there’s people like Ramit Sethi, where I get the phrase “Rich Life,” whose work is helping me learn how to make my money work for me instead of the other way around. (Like last time, not a sponsorship, but Ramit, if you see this, let’s talk.)
Being intentional with my money means knowing where it goes, proactively directing spending to what matters, and automating transfers to savings and investment accounts to keep my net worth growing.
Experiences
When this is published, my wife and I will be perusing museums in Kansas City, working on that intentional life of travel and discovery. We planned this trip and started saving months ago, and we already have several more trips and retreats in the calendar for the rest of this year, as well as a couple big vacations which aren’t scheduled but are assigned to upcoming years. Being intentional with our love for travel looks like having flexible jobs that allow us to take regular trips, putting rough travel dates on the calendar a year or more in advance instead of just waiting to “get around to it,” and strategically saving money two or three trips ahead, because we want to get the most out of our vacation experience without worrying about the credit card bill when we get home.
Patronage
Few things speak louder in the modern world than money trails. Personally, I have come to feel that purchasing from a business makes me, in some small way, complicit in the priorities and goals of that business. With that mindset, I want to give my patronage to places that share my values, treat their employees well, and make a quality product. I want to support small, local businesses that offer ethically sourced, sustainable goods and services. For example, in the past year, I’ve tried to avoid McDonald’s, if possible, because they have consistently proven that they are content with mediocrity and poor customer service. The bottom line is when my money leaves my hand, I want to place it in a hand that is making the world a better place.
These are themes you will continue to see from me and my work, on macro and micro levels. I am capturing the process of building a life I can be proud of, that I love. Some parts I’ve achieved. Many parts are still in progress, and through this site, I get to share as I learn and discover. My hope is to inspire similar ambitions in you who follow me. Your best life, your intentional life, probably looks different from mine, and that’s wonderful. As I share snapshots of my journey, I hope you’ll discover practical advice for your own journey and see how intentional living can positively impact you and your surroundings.