Sometimes I am what my mother called ‘a forgetter’ – I forget to do things that really work for me. Over the last year, I have got into the habit of planning what I’ll do in a day and forgotten to start by setting an intention for the day. Fortunately, I have a friend who reminds me of things I forget – thank you Rebecca!

Setting an intention for the day makes a difference to how our days go, because it gives a bigger context for the plans – it flavours the activities, if you like. Rather than just doing stuff, it makes you aware of how you’re doing them, and prompts you to add in or take out of your plan, in order to fulfil your intention.

A simple example would be to say to yourself: ‘I will have a good day today.’ This prompts you to think about what a good day means to you, and to make sure you give yourself the chance to put the right sort of mix into the equation. It might mean adding in something you enjoy doing, or taking out one of the tasks you had set yourself because it would be one step too far.

Setting an intention for the day gives you something more satisfying to assess your day against. It’s taking it beyond what you did and into how you did it. and it gives you back control: even if we can’t always choose what we’re going to do, we can always choose how we go about it.

So, what’s your intention for the day? Is it to have a good day, a productive day, or to give yourself a break? Make it into a day with a flavour that suits you by just deciding you will.