Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 7,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Get started for free
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
Intentional summary
Chris Bailey
How to Finish What You Start
20 mins
Brief summary
Intentional by Chris Bailey explores the concept of living with intention, providing insights and strategies to help individuals focus on what truly matters, enhance productivity, and lead a more fulfilling and meaningful life.
Table of Contents
Intentional
Summary of 6 key ideas
Audio & text in the Blinkist app
Key idea 1 of 6
Take control of your autopilot
Did you know that about 40 to 45 percent of what you do each day happens automatically? This is your brain setting intentions on your behalf – reaching for your phone, grabbing a snack, checking email – without you consciously deciding to do these things. But while habits can be useful, they won’t help you achieve meaningful goals. Real change requires waking up to what you're doing while you're doing it.
So, what can you do about it? Here's a way to start: try to catch the exact moment your brain decides to switch tasks. For instance, try catching the moment you reach for your phone in the middle of another activity. When does it happen? What triggers it? Boredom? A wandering thought? An interruption? Most people find this shockingly hard. These micro-decisions are invisible until you train yourself to see them.
Once you can spot these automatic intentions, you can start intervening. Pick any routine activity – making coffee, walking downstairs, washing dishes – and deliberately slow down. Notice each small intention as it forms: your hand reaching for a cup, your feet hitting the floor, your response to seeing an empty container. The author did this while getting a snack, observing every automatic action, then consciously chose to wait until he was upstairs to eat rather than cramming food in his mouth while walking. Small intervention, big shift in awareness.
Noticing habits is one piece. The other is giving yourself room to figure out what you actually want. Schedule regular periods where your mind can wander freely – walks without podcasts, showers without mental to-do lists, or even cooking without background noise. Studies show that during this mental downtime, you’ll naturally spend about 48 percent of your time thinking about the future and your goals. You’ll also think about goals fourteen times more often when your mind wanders compared to when you’re focused on a task.
All of this comes together when you can link your present-moment actions to your deepest priorities. Picture a stack: at the bottom, what you're doing right now; above that, your immediate plans; then your goals; and at the top, your core values. When you align what you’re doing right now with your core values at the top of the stack, you transform from someone reacting automatically to someone acting with genuine purpose.
Want to see all full key ideas from Intentional?
Key ideas in Intentional
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
What is Intentional about?
Intentional (2025) reveals how to achieve your ambitions by aligning your daily actions with what truly matters to you. Drawing on a decade of productivity research and insights from Buddhist philosophy, this guide offers practical strategies for structuring goals, overcoming procrastination, and knowing when to let go of pursuits that don’t serve you. Discover how to transform productivity from a struggle into something that flows naturally from your deepest values.
Who should read Intentional?
- Professionals who want to focus their energy on what truly matters
- Goal-setters who struggle to follow through
- Anyone seeking a deeper sense of fulfillment beyond just checking off tasks
Categories with Intentional
Book summaries like Intentional
People ❤️ Blinkist
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
People also liked these summaries
4.8 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
43 Million
Downloads on all platforms
10+ years
Experience igniting personal growth