We've explored the necessity for mindfulness with a purpose in mind. Today, we explore how best we can keep our purpose top of mind, how we can best ensure that we get the most out of each moment of each day.

And, as this series progresses, you can revisit earlier installments using the links below:

We are encouraged when we perceive our own success - however insignificant that success might appear to the casual observer. Today's video explores how a doable To Do List can be used to provide ourselves with that source of encouragement: a short list of important things that you stand a good chance of getting done today.

So, now, before you go any further, write (handwrite) your short list.

Also, it might help for you to look back over our recent Ezine Series - Goal Setting and Goal Getting.

We're in too much of a rush. Indeed, one management team with whom I recently worked told me that being rushed off your feet was an integral part of corporate culture: if you were moving at a controlled and serene pace, you were obviously, if not surplus to requirement, not going anywhere in the organization.

This fashionable madness is everywhere to be seen: guys stuffing their faces with giant sandwiches whilst they run around like headless chickens on a ten minute lunchbreak; girls rear-ending the car in front as they put on their face in the rear-view mirror. People busy being busy and being seen to be busy by others who are too busy to see them.

What I have discovered, in talking to clients one-to-one over the last few months, is that we are busy being busy to the point that we don't know why we are being busy: the means is important, not the end. In fact, most people don't even have an end in mind. With this lack of vison, your end is eminently predictable - just like my good friend who, on the verge of an all too premature death, bemoaned the fact that he had never taken the time to do the small but critically important things that he really, really wanted to do.

For you and I, waiting for a deathbed conversion, would be mindless in the extreme - all the moreso when we are currently exploring mindfulness. The means that we adopt - the things that we do (and how we do them) today - need to be in the furtherance of the ends our heart desires. If you're doing your face when you should be driving or stuffing it when you should be walking, there is little chance that you're going to give yourself the time and space to figure out - to really, really figure out - what ends you have in mind.

I keep using the plural - ends - because what we want, our goals, intentions and objectives, are in an ongoing state of evolution. What we need to do is have a good idea what our personal evolutionary objectives are: What kind of life do I want? How do I want to spend my time? What are the things that really turn me on? What would an ideal day (evening, breakfast, Sunday morning) look and feel like?

Stop stuffing your face and start feeding your brain with the kind of ideas that will make your reality all that it should be. Give yourself the necessary space and time to figure out your ends - then you can go back to being busy... but busy with a purpose in mind.