What size & how many intentions to set each day?
A user asks: what is a good number of intentions to set in Complice each day? And how big/specific should each one be?
Ultimately it’s less about size and more about clarity. You want to maximize 3 components:
#1. Actionableness
You want it to be clear how to get started on a given intention. Consider this intention:
1) Move the x project forward
...could be clear if you have a next action list for that project somewhere. But if you don’t immediately know how to start a particular intention, you’ll want to be more specific. So maybe the intention would read more like this:
1) List out remaining steps for project x
One specific instance of this that I’ve already written about: Make “think about” intentions concrete and actionable.
#2. Attractiveness
Do your best to frame the intentions not just as random actions to perform, but in a way that gets you in touch with the purpose of the action. To some extent, Complice helps with this by colorizing each intention with the goal color, reminding you of why you’re doing it. So for example, consider:
&) clean my room
...if cleaning sounds like a chore to you, you might instead want to frame it something more like:
&) make my room a delightful space to be in
...provided, of course, that that’s something you know how to take action on, as per #1. If not, then maybe combine them:
&) put away or throw out a dozen things in my room so it’s more delightful to be in
#3. Organization
Don’t put in a ton of little intentions that will make your list hard to skim, unless having dozens of little items to tick off is super motivating as per #1 and #2.
But also, put enough detail in your tasks so that later when you’re reflecting, you can be clear on what it was in fact that you were doing.
Part of the value of your Complice data is that it represents a log of what you did each day. By keeping this in mind, you’ll tend to put a level of detail that is appropriate both now and later. (But this component is third because the other two are more important).
Complice is an app that helps you make progress each day towards what’s most important to you. It can change the way you think about productivity. Learn more...













