Living on purpose is thinking on purpose

Are we doing ourselves a disservice? Where do we draw the line between reasonable assistance and overreliance? How will our evolved critical thinking skills (or lack thereof) impact our ability to make decisions that allow us to live with intention?

These are the questions I've asked and continue to ask.

I'm not here to offer any hot takes or grand statements about not leveraging artificial intelligence (AI). I use a handful of AI tools in my daily life. I certainly don't sit on one side of the fence regarding using or not using AI; instead, I'm stuck somewhere in the messy middle.

What I am hellbent on is the fear that we are unintentionally impairing our ability to think critically when we rely too heavily on tools to do it for us. Researchers are theorizing and studying the risk of habitually offloading cognitive tasks to AI tools. Students use AI and hold mixed opinions about its use and place in learning. Researchers are publishing studies about knowledge workers using AI, indicating that it "can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving."

Here's the problem: critical thinking skills are essential for living intentionally.

You must ask yourself tough questions to make the most of your precious life. Thinking critically is core to understanding how you want to spend your time and taking steps to achieve it. The link between an intentional life and critical thinking is foundational and reciprocal—one can't exist without the other.

Living intentionally means making conscious, deliberate choices aligned with your values, so you need to be able to:

• Analyze your time spending and assess your reality against your values and vision

• Question inherited beliefs and habits that no longer serve you well

• Evaluate what information, influences, and behaviors are (and are not) worth your time

• Encourage honest self-assessment, digging into your "why" and "what if" moments that can alter your life trajectory

• Resist societal pressures, distractions, and superficial goals for external validation over internal alignment

So, how do we combat this?

1. We get to know ourselves really damn well! (Hopefully, Time Intentional helps you with that.)

2. And we train our brains. We can't let our cognitive capabilities wither.

In Ep. 346 of Deep Questions with Cal Newport, part two of a conversation about the effects of technology on our thinking abilities, Cal offers tangible, practical strategies for "brain training." (Think about this like you might think about exercise for good physical health.)

Here's what Cal suggested:

• Interval training to increase focus: Focus intently on something difficult once a week (e.g., reading a tough book, taking an online course, playing an instrument) for a set amount of time. If your mind starts to wander, start over. Increase your interval length to grow your concentration over time. So, work on a mentally strenuous activity for 10 minutes uninterrupted. Repeat the 10-minute interval until you are comfortable, then try increasing it to 15 or 20 minutes.

• Dialectical reading: Learn how to actively engage with information (rather than consume content strictly served by algorithms). Choose an issue you are interested in. Find an excellent book pushing one side of the issue and the best possible defense of the other side, and read them both. Embrace the collision of back-and-forth perspectives and welcome new points of view. You will inherently develop complex and nuanced understandings of issues.

• Create idea documents: If there's something you care about or find interesting, keep a document where you take notes on what you've learned and how you think about the idea. Update your document over time. Writing information down and organizing thoughts on paper helps you think clearly. "Writing is thinking," Cal expressed.

• Become a connoisseur of something: You don't have to be good at an activity, but you should learn to understand its quality. Cal used the example of becoming a connoisseur of the NFL without having to become a football player in the NFL. If you're willing to learn, you can understand a topic at length without actually being the expert. Develop an appreciation for expertise and the richness of information.

• Get selective (intentional!) about digital information consumption: Check your habits. Be careful with your social media feeds. Consider moving toward podcasts, newsletters, and YouTube videos that you seek out. Look for thoughtful, expert, engaging commentary.

One of human life's most beautiful, messy parts is our ability to think. We can think about and reflect on our experiences, co-create the environments we want to live in and be part of, empathize with perspectives we've never experienced, question our instincts, and construct meaning. Freedom, imagination, connection, and meaning are born in critical thinking.

Time Well Spent: Weekly Roundup

Instead of three reflections this week, I’m choosing one reflection and sharing practical tips you can implement!

Pure Barre is my workout of choice and one I love. Life disrupted my routine, and after weeks away from the studio, I was ready to get back to it this week. I also know how painful it can be to jump back into a routine after an extended time away, so I set an easy-to-achieve goal to take three classes and set up accountability mechanisms so it would be impossible to fail. I told my husband I wanted to attend three classes, signed up for a class within the pay-to-cancel window (meaning, if I canceled, I'd have to pay $20), and chose my class times at the beginning of the week and blocked my calendar.

The Takeaways

• If you want to be more intentional throughout the week, set mini, achievable goals with built-in motivation mechanisms, such as:

  • An accountability partner: Bring your goal to life by sharing it with someone else or, better yet, doing the work or activity with someone. For example, if your goal is to walk four days a week, try to find someone to walk with so you can hold each other accountable.

  • Putting something you care about on the line: This doesn’t have to be big, but it should be big enough to drive you to stay committed.

  • Isolating a time block versus a general timeframe for the goal: “I’ll do that on Wednesday,” we say. Then Wednesday arrives, and we “don’t have time.” Instead, try something like, “I’ll do that thing from 2:00-3:00 pm on Wednesday, and it’s on my calendar.”

Don’t forget! I add The Takeaways to our running list of Intentional Journaling Prompts each week. The questions are a great place to start, whether you journal (physically or digitally) or want a few thought starters to help you dig deeper into building an intentional life. Feel free to share the list with someone who may benefit from it, too!

One More Thing Before You Go…

I’m Alyssa Towns, a freelance writer, and this is Time Intentional, a newsletter exploring what it means to spend our limited (and precious) time intentionally. Only you can decide how to spend your time in a way that feels intentional!

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