Intentional communication


'Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.'

Jim Rohn.


How often do you stop what you're doing, pick up your phone for a specific reason, only to see a message, respond to it, and respond to other messages, put your phone down again, turn back to your computer, and realise you never did that thing you were going to do on your phone? 


Whenever things like this happen, it costs time, energy and impact.


New Behaviour 

Be focused and intentional with your work and communication. 


Benefits



  • Save time and energy working more efficiently
  • Find focus and flow state 
  • Feel in more in control of your time and workload


Necessary Mindset

Realise these behaviours are a choice, and remind yourself: 


  • The more replies I send, the more messages I generate
  • It's not rude to prioritise other tasks or communication
  • Only some messages need responding to urgently 
  • The more focused I can be, the more I will achieve 


Supporting Actions

Practice focused, intentional work: 


  • Lock down your notifications - minimise pop-up messages
  • Create dedicated chunks of time to respond to messages
  • Brief your team and colleagues: if they need answers urgently, they can tell you, if not, you'll respond when you can 
  • Make quick lists of messages to send, then dedicate time to sending them all together



Written by Simon Tomkins

9 September 2025

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