Pseudocode for Intentionality

I’ve been interested in being more intentional with my work, time and life recently. Here is my working definition of how to be more intentional.

• Definition: One has achieved Intentionality when every major outcome was a result of explicit choices, planning, coordination and research to achieve it rather than accidental/implicit/passive/improvised. It is possible for Intentionality Overhead to kill outcomes.

• Key Tools: self/team alignment tools to have at all times. If not written down, doesn’t exist.

  • Purpose: why you are doing this. for when bad times come.
  • Goal: what you are realistically aiming for (just convey rough idea; systems are more impt). Should inspire ambition, reach, awe. BHAG but worthwhile.
  • Timeline++: what specific things will be delivered by when by a DRI
  • Systems: routines and policies that simplify decision-making and ensure things happen on time. eg regular daily/weekly sync.

• While (goal != true):

  • Planning: Don’t commit to things before agreeing on a plan
    • Inventory: Brainstorm and spell out EVERYTHING that is in scope vs not in scope vs maybe.
    • Budget: Assign effort/resource cost to each item (easy to underestimate!)
    • Rank: with limited time/people/money, force hard choices — prioritization has value
    • Unblock: Understand blockers to parallelization/delegation of yourself: key unknowns (“clear your fog of war”), lack of documentation/defined roles/trust/incentives/training
  • Execution: Getting Things Done
    • Maker time: Put execution blocks on your own calendar, lead by example. do boring things.
    • Manager time: keep RACI people in the loop, map their roles out so they dont step on each other toes and there’s an owner for everything, ensure they know what is expected of them by giving feedback early and often, change/direct systems
    • Mapper time: Make time to f around (with fringe ideas) and find out (what others are doing)
    • Marketer time: Some amount of Build in Public helpful but do not overdo it

• Review: Meditate and Accumulate learnings during/after each major ship —don’t let learnings go to waste. If not reviewed, it did not happen. Can interview people but also just jot down own notes on:

  • Good: what went surprisingly well and why
  • Bad: what could have gone better and why. Pay attention to negative core beliefs.
  • Nonlinearities: what the 80/20 effort and hard deadlines were
  • People: who to thank and keep up relationships with

Misc

• initially drafted w chatgpt but mostly me
• People often emphasize SMART goals: (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound). The problem with SMART:
  1. it neglects ambition/challenge, in fact prioritizing Achievable. JFK’s moonshot was not SMART but NASA made it so.
  2. false precision - 5 things to fret over setting goals when actually you don’t rise to your goals, you fall to the level of your systems
• SImilar documents:
  • Brent Beshore’s Blueprint: “The resulting list forms a planning document we are calling Blueprint. The Blueprint includes the objective, 3 to 5 strategies, action plans beneath each strategy, and then metrics, ownership, and timeline tied to each plan.”
  • David Sacks’ Cadence: “The Cadence puts the four key functions in a SaaS company (Sales, Finance, Product, Marketing) on a quarterly calendar. Human beings are wired for seasons so this is a natural way to work. The Sales-Finance System is oriented around a quarterly close as its central event, while the Product-Marketing System orients around a launch event. Synchronizing these calendars creates a single operating cadence for the company.”